


Prom Queen and the Poltergeist

by Lesbian_Activity



Category: Heathers (1988), Heathers: The Musical - Murphy & O'Keefe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Ghosts, May add more pairings, seeing as im a giant lesbian yall can bet im doing this in such a way as to maximise girls
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2018-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-23 18:47:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11995797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesbian_Activity/pseuds/Lesbian_Activity
Summary: Veronica locks up in front of her, choking on her own breath, and Heather is suddenly seized with a dread so powerful and gripping that it roots her in place.She has witnessed the death of Veronica Sawyer - and her last words were “orange juice”.AKA: Heather asks Veronica to put her money where her mouth is before she drinks the 'hangover cure', and Westerburg’s first death isn’t a suicide.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to title this "veronica takes a fuckin sip, babes" because i'm pretty sure i laughed abs onto myself when i thought of it, but then i remembered i should probably give it a vaguely more Serious title if i want people to read it lmfao
> 
> ANyways!! For maximum fun i have put the canon of the movie and the musical into a blender and am Takin A Fuckin Sipp of my own. Feel free to ask me what plot points i've pulled from each if you're curious!
> 
> Without further ado!! a short ass prologue chapter. Everything after this should be like at Least double or triple this length but i needed the good good cutoff for Dramatic Effect

“What, did you spit in it?” The disdain is palpable, rolling off one recently-awoken Heather Chandler in waves. She rolls her eyes at the same time Veronica and her new Jesse James looking friend stifle laughs. Normally she’d kill them both for breaking in, but if she knows Veronica as well as she thinks she does, they’re in the market for a very interesting conversation......

The one that will make or break her status in the Heathers. So Heather makes a show of checking her nails at a leisurely pace. “I’m not drinking that piss, you know.” She says flatly.

“I knew this stuff would be too intense for her.” The boy says with a laugh, obviously intent to get under her skin. Heather is about to chew his ass out for assuming his childish attempt to lead her into it is going to work, but Veronica jumps back in, bright mood not soured.

“Why, _Heather_ !” She says, with a mock gasp, in an overly-saccharine voice. “I didn’t _spit_ in it.” Veronica has always been obvious in a joke, and she does everything short of wink at her creepy friend and nudge him with her elbow.

Note to self: whatever is in there will be disgusting. How badly does Veronica want her to drink it? Heather’s going to find out.............employing the same tactics as Mister School Shooter.

“Prove it.” She says. “You drink first, and if you can stomach it, I won’t bitch out either. If you blow chunks again....I’ll call the police for breaking into my house with a stranger.”

Veronica has the gall to smirk at her then, eyes flashing with the fire that made Heather adopt her into the clique entirely in the first place. It would’ve been easy to just extort a few favors from her in return for a one-time chance to sit at their table, both of them know that - _this_ is the reason she wanted to keep her for good.

This is a girl that knows how to fuck with the eagles, and Heather knows it. _She could turn out beautifully -_ if Heather sees fit to spare her. She’s still pissed about last night, after all. Cockiness is one thing, but Veronica is still going to have to beg at least once before monday.

Everything after that seems to happen in time measured faster than in seconds; Veronica lifts the mug for a swig and Tall Dark And Trenchcoat grabs her by the arm, hard- “Veronica!” She yanks it away and finishes a long sip.

“It’s only -” Veronica’s voice hitches, like the air has been siphoned from her lungs. She brings her hands up to her throat and gasps. Rather valiantly, she tries to finish the sentence. “Or-ange...juice....”

Finally, there is not enough air to substantiate her lungs. Veronica locks up in front of her, and Heather is seized with a sudden,intense dread that grips her to her very core, prevents her from moving even an inch from where she now stands. There’s a thick sense of finality, a last, breathy gasp, and then the fall. Heather has always considered falling to be an ugly thing. Veronica makes it art.

The shattered remnants of the glass coffee table scatter about her like tiny diamonds.

She has witnessed the death of Veronica Sawyer - and her last words were “orange juice”.

There’s a strangled silence. Syrupy blue liquid dribbles from Veronica’s mouth, with almost comical timing. The mug fell and is now shattered on the floor, white fragments glistening artificial blue from where they’d been touching the contents of the porcelain. Drano, evidently.

Heather is _pissed_ , but more than that, afraid. Which makes her more pissed. “Explain. Now.” She says icily, eyes still locked on her friend - her dead friend? Is she dead? Her mind is running laps around itself - on the floor, even though it’s probably a good idea to keep an eye on the creep who just happened to be in her house when she died. Heather forces her eyes up. She takes a sharp breath as she does it, like Veronica’s corpse had been pulling her oxygen away. “Why am I looking at my best friend’s corpse?”

“It was supposed to be _you_ ,” He seethes, voice choked, like he's about to cry. “You weren’t even _friends_ ,” He adds sourly.

This is entirely too absurd. Heather, shell shocked and frightened and angry, does what any rational teenage girl might when faced with the knowledge that someone put a hit out on them: she laughs. Hard. Desperately, maybe. She doesn’t care. “And you think - “ Another loud, disbelieving laugh - “You think she was ever going to be cool with _murdering_ people?! You’re _sick_ , and _worse_ , stupid.” She tears her feet away from where they’ve been rooted and moves hastily for the door. She’s not wearing shoes yet, she thinks absently. She watched her friend die and she’s not even wearing her nice shoes yet.

“I’m calling the police, you fucking freak.” She’s able to pull off her signature vicious sneer more on instinct than anything else, but she realizes quickly that perhaps taunting a murderer is a poor decision.

He lurches towards her, hand vicelike around her wrist, nails digging into her skin through the nightgown, and it _hurts_ , but Heather Chandler has been grabbed before. He jerks her body towards himself, intent on bringing her face into range, but Heather grabs an iron jewelry stand from her vanity and clocks him with it, swinging up and by his nose. Judging by the crack - it did its job. He lets go to grab his face, howling in pain and anger, and she turns and sprints for the door.

 _The kitchen phone is out_ . She thinks, quickly. _Too exposed_. There’s a study in the second floor, the door locks, there’s a phone - the psycho in her house is fumbling with the door behind her, so she doesn’t have time to make a further decision. She runs down the stairs as quickly as she can without tripping (it’s not hard; she can do it in heels) and locks herself away, quickly picking up the phone and punching in the numbers. 9. Rotate the dial again. 1. Let it snap back into place. 1.

Her breathing is even by the time she’s put through to the operator. The office door hasn’t been touched.

“Hello? Someone’s been murdered in my house.” She says, matter-o-factly.

The boy is gone when the police arrive at the scene.

It’s going to be a long Saturday.  


	2. Monday 8 AM

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told myself i was going to pace myself with these chapters, but i got too excited so now i'm posting this 2 days after the prologue?? I'm glad those of u who left comments are all rarin for more!! I have one or two chapters already written, but i'm trying to spread them out lmao. i can already tell how thats gonna work. also i might get around to giving the chapters real titles but for now it's just numbers sorry ;;
> 
> anyway thanks so much to everyone who's checked out this story! I hope the second chapter o̶f̶ ̶V̶e̶r̶o̶n̶i̶c̶a̶ ̶T̶a̶k̶e̶s̶ ̶A̶ ̶F̶u̶c̶k̶i̶n̶ ̶S̶i̶p̶ ̶B̶a̶b̶e̶s̶ doesn't disappoint!
> 
> Edit: MONDAAAY EIGHT AM, SHE WAS DELE-TED

To the shock of her parents, Heather is confidently walking through the school doors on Monday morning. They ask a few times if she’s okay, if she’s traumatized - but it’s all lip service. If the police hadn’t called them to the house, would they even have known anything happened?

Heather shook her head and pretended she’d be missing an important test Monday if she didn’t go, but the truth of it is that she can’t stand the thought of sitting up in her room unentertained and fending off her mother’s attempts at conversation with a stick.

Besides, the rumors are _so_ very. Unshockingly, Heather took the time to call Duke, MacNamara, and everyone who was anyone to tell them what’d happened as soon as the police left her house.

Everyone at school has their eyes on her, as they should and as they always, always do, but it’s different today. They look at her with _more_ reverence, _more_ envy. More fear.

“ _Heather’s life is so crazy. I heard she watched some girl die this weekend.”_ Comes an anxious voice.

 _“She’s still at school? That crazy bitch.”_ In an approving tone.

“ _Veronica is dead?”_ Disbelief.

It’s nice at first; a fresh new coat of intrigue to wear around school. A badge of honor and veteran coolness that shines so brightly Heather can nearly forget the source of it - but the talking, the speculation, the rumors - they don’t stop when she wills it, as much as she might try, and the story evolves throughout the school.

“ _Weren’t they friends last week....? How can she act like this?”_ Questioning.

“ _I heard Veronica was kicked out of the group, but maybe it wasn’t good enough.”_ Suspiciously.

“ _I bet Heathers put a hit out on her.”_

_“I bet Heather # 1 killed her.”_

Normally Heather likes these rumors about her ruthlessness - but isn’t that pushing it? Why would she _murder_ her when she could _humiliate_ her? It’s not Heather’s style, but her ‘style’ seems to be hydroplaning out of her control, and it’s only picking up the pace. Accelerated rumors punch through the hallways as Ms. Fleming hurries about the school gracelessly, trying to arrange enough quotes and stories and pictures of Veronica to put together a grand memorial.

“Oh! Heather and Heather - and Heather.” She tacks on, seeing MacNamara, who stands mopily behind Duke. Even though she's the tallest, Heather's not surprised Fleming didn't notice her before - she's not carrying herself the way she's supposed to. She’s been put-out by the news of Veronica’s death, even though Duke took it with grace. Heather plans on calling her a pussy at lunch, but for now she’s gone unreprimanded. Ms. Fleming continues, oblivious to their obvious disinterest. “Do you have any photos of Veronica? I want to hold a memorial on Friday.”

“Pictures? Of that idiot? Of course not.” Heather says coolly.

She has dozens. Pinned up in her locker, stuffed into her vanity, hiding in a folder somewhere in her room - dozens.

Duke follows Heather’s lead, rolling her shoulders in a shrug. “I guess I can get you whatever the yearbook has of her. It’s probably nothing you weren’t able to get from the school, though.”

MacNamara only mumbles in response. “I’ll check my house....If I find anything, I’ll bring it to you.” She says miserably. “You’ll give them back, right?”

“Of course, of course!” Ms. Fleming says, loudly, like she’s trying to make sure the whole god damned school can hear. “I know it must be terrible. Absolutely terrible! If you need any help at all, let me know. I’ll be in my counseling office all day.” She moves her arm like she’s going to reach out for Heather’s hand and squeeze it, so she pulls it away with a contemptuous look. MacNamara and Duke shuffle past the teacher, and that’s the end of it.

Disturbed by the interaction for reasons she’s not sure of herself, Heather speeds through the hallway more aggressively than usual. The other kids part in front of them, and soon they’re in their usual table at the cafeteria, leaving the confused student body in their wake.

The void where Veronica usually sat becomes more pronounced when they all settle into their places. MacNamara stares at it. “I know she was out, but I still can’t belie-”

“Shut up, Heather.”

“Heather?!” MacNamara asks, eyes wide. As if she doesn’t know better than to wax sentimental about someone that threw up on Heather Fucking Chandler’s 300 dollar shoes. “I-I thought,” she stammers.

“She was _out_ , remember?” Heather says, in a light, even voice. “She never existed. If someone were to walk up to you today and ask if you knew her, you’d say, “I didn’t know a Veronica Sawyer even went to this school!” and laugh. Socially, she’s dead. Her actual death is just a convenient side effect.” Convenient. That's all it is.

MacNamara stares again, only this time it’s directed at Heather herself. She meets her gaze without flinching, but there’s something unusual in Mac’s eyes - contempt? Fear? It’s so hard to tell the two apart. But the anger - that’s a new thing for her. She looks at her searchingly, like she's trying to find some sort of clue that Heather's joking. 

Whatever MacNamera might be feeling, it’s beneath her. Heather puts her elbows on the table and rests her head in her hands, still insistently maintaining eye contact with a smile.

As always, MacNamara looks away first. Nobody ever wins a staring contest with Heather, after all.

Well. Nobody still among the living.

“.....Sorry, Heather. I wasn’t thinking.” She says finally, withdrawing into herself with her arms crossed. As always, Heather has cowed her into submission, and the other blonde looks shamefaced, refusing to meet her eyes.

“When do you ever?” Heather drawls, and Duke laughs on cue, followed by MacNamara’s own guilty laugh at her own expense, and everything is back to normal. In a few minutes, they'll forget they ever had a confrontation - it's how they operate.

They really only pick at their food (it would be an absolute travesty, of course, if anyone saw them eating and got the crazy idea into their heads that the Heathers could ever look anything less than flawless, so naturally, any messy foods were avoided and most foods in general had to be bypassed in public) during the beginning of the lunch period, and eventually Duke breaks the question. “Are we still doing the lunch poll?”

Heather pops another corn nut into her mouth. “Hmm.....I guess we shouldn’t let a perfectly good poll day go to waste. Grab a clipboard, Heather.”

MacNamara nods and slips a yellow one out of her backpack. “What’s the question today? I don't think we stopped by the yearbook room to ask.”

“Yeah, Heather, what’s the question?” Duke echoes.

“Who cares?” Heather says with a huff. “We can ask whatever we want. The yeardork committee isn’t actually using every single poll, anyway. Ask them what they’d do if they won the lottery two days before the world ends. It should be fun.”

Things go smoothly, but everybody is clearly disappointed by the survey question, and she knows why. A few try to ask her about _it_ , but Heather’s ire is so immediate and obvious that they quickly think better of it and forget they ever asked. Duke faithfully writes down what the students say.

They’ve nearly finished their circuit of all the people worth talking to when Heather finally notices something unusual: someone is sitting with Martha Laughingstock. She wants to laugh first at the poor soul that’s committing social suicide before she devises some way to make the whole school laugh with her, but then she notices something.

Martha isn’t looking up. None of the other students are. Which they obviously would be, knowing Martha’s reputation....

And the person sitting with her?

Veronica Sawyer.

She looks exactly the same. Her messy, not-quite-windswept hair, her blue blazer, the curve of her jaw, those half-lidded eyes; even her posture is identical. The only difference between this Veronica and the real one is the fact that Heather watched the real one get _dragged out of her house in a bodybag_ , and this one is hazy, grey-blue apparition in the school fucking cafeteria.

Phantom-Veronica is leaning across the table with a wistful look, hands clasped over the hand Martha isn’t using to vacantly stir her mashed potatoes. It occurs to Heather, dimly, that the two used to be friends (along with a Betty Finn who is suspiciously absent. Mourning?).

It sort of feels like if she watches long enough, Martha will look up, or someone will shout about seeing Veronica at school, but it never happens. Martha just keeps stirring, stirring, stirring, even though her food should be liquidated by now, too depressed to bring the spork to her mouth.

She’d call it a mirage, but Veronica puts her head down on the table, still reaching across, so she can’t deny it’s a damn detailed mirage that can move. Her body finally seems to catch up with her mind, and Heather stops cold in the middle of the cafeteria, lest she wander into some idiot student while her eyes are averted.

Nearly bumping into her after the sudden stop, the other Heathers quickly cross over to stand in front of her so they can talk. “Heather? What’s up?” Duke asks first, trying to follow her line of sight. “Ooh. Don’t wanna look at Shamu, right?” She suggests with a laugh. “Unless you thought of polling her for some kind of practical joke. Don’t waste your time.”

“Shut up, Heather.” She mutters, so out of character that MacNamara screws up her face and cocks her head.

“Are you okay, Heather? You look like you’ve seen a ghost..”

At this the spectre’s head snaps up, and she turns around. Even with the strange new tint to her skin, her face is as expressive as ever, and when she gasps, she stands up with a kind of wild impatience and crosses the cafeteria to get to her, uninterrupted by students already using the walkway. She slips through them like air. For the umpteenth time today, Heather is stared at.

“Well?” Not-Veronica says, eyes flickering with interest, alternating from the way they were, clear and burning, to something eerie and empty, caverns of pitch black with nothing but white-ringed points to indicate where she’s looking. “Do you?”

Heather does what any reasonable person ought to: she ignores it. “Just a fatass,” She snaps, in response to MacNamara, whirling around on her heel. “We don’t need to survey this one. Let’s compile results. I’m sick of looking at this.”

So they leave. Veronica follows.

“Shame we never got the chance to forge that note from Ram,” Duke says idly, a thinly-veiled dig at Martha that she always needs to slip in. It’s laughably transparent, really, that she’s just making fun of the one person on the social ladder she can always reliably spit on. Martha is the scum of the school to her. “I would’ve loved to see the look on her face when he laughs her out of the cafeteria.”

Veronica has Opinions about that. Heather can already tell this is going to be a nuisance. “It was a bitchy thing to suggest,” Comes her voice in a dark mutter. “She never hurt anyone. So why is everyone so mean to her....?”

MacNamara laughs. “I’m sure he’ll do it on his own. And if you really need to watch, just slip him a beer and he and Kurt will do whatever you want.”

“Why do you guys _act_ like this?”

“Hah! I like your style. Maybe he can lead her on and make her cry.”

A frustrated edge creeps into Veronica’s voice. “ _Why_ are you all such _megabitches?_ ”

Having to listen to a 3-way conversation is just about going to drive Heather crazy. They walk out under the guise of having to use the bathroom, and when they get to a rather empty hallway, Heather whips around and gives Veronica her nastiest glare - a nonverbal _SHUT UP, RONNIE_.

Veronica’s lip curls up in that same, knowing smile. “Knew it.” She breathes, and Heather can almost smell the drain cleaner, that nose-stinging, bleached-clean scent. Seeing the other two Heathers behind her, Veronica seems to sober up, smile slipping away. “....Let’s talk later, then.” She winks out of existence and Heather scowls as she straightens up her blazer - at the same time Duke gives her a querying look.

“I thought I saw a fly.” She offers in explanation.

Duke snorts, a rare instance of her actual humor sneaking through. “And you thought you could glare it to death?” 

She turns her attention on Duke and raises one perfectly styled eyebrow. The other girl coughs. “O-on second thought, it might just work.”

Sunshiney as ever, it’s MacNamara that breaks the tension with a giggle. “Between the two of you, I'm surprised there are any bugs left on the campus at all.” She glances between the two and the near-empty hallway with a contemplative hum. “Hey, we should do something tonight.”

“A party on a Monday night? Naughty, naughty.” Duke recovers quickly, and wastes little time in encouraging whatever plan MacNamara is cooking up. 

Even Heather is mirthful and approving. “I agree. Even we don’t usually get shitfaced on monday nights. What’s the occasion?”

MacNamara is suddenly bashful. “Well, I didn’t really mean a party,” She says, wringing her hands. “Just the three of us at someone’s house with a movie...maybe go out to dinner,” Mac appends, but not without a shy glance at Duke. Worried about her bulimia - how disgustingly noble. “Since anything can happen, I mean. We should have fun.” _Like we used to_ is unspoken but implied.

Normally she’d call it juvenile to propose a stupid movie night instead of going to the mall or doing something worth their time like, say, keeping the football team in check, but......nobody is watching right now.

Heather makes a show of tossing her hair and rolling her eyes. “I _suppose_ it’s in our best interests to coordinate our outfits for the fall fest away from the desperate public, so meet me at my house at five.”

The duo smile and MacNamara cheers and throws her arms around Duke, who gracelessly accepts and fails to reciprocate the embrace.

Heather approves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact about my writing process here i initially wanted to do that tropey nonsense where i talk about eye color a bunch for Emotional Value and so i looked at like 9000 pictures of winona ryder (which is the diametric opposite of a hassle because goodness she is PRETTY) and i could not for the life of me figure out if her eyes were brown or hazel. i opted brown because I was unsure (and that usually means its brown right??) so thats veronica's deal in this story even tho i decided not to mention it klsjgkldh
> 
> thanks for reading! if u have any thoughts u should ;) ;) tell me about them ;')
> 
> EDIT** 9/17/17: I reread the chapter and realized i fucked up my own timeline with a bit of heather's dialog. "homecoming" has been changed to fall fest. Homecoming already happened because in the movie J.D stated that the football season was over, putting them in mid-late October at the very earliest. Line has been adjusted to "fall fest" for continuity bc my fool ass forgot dances are called other things but there's still a dance planned for plot purposes.


	3. Movie Night

She didn’t say “be there at five” on accident. Before Heather is even home, she spots Veronica lingering around the school, although she doesn’t say anything to her, even when she ultimately follows her to her porsche. “At my house.” Heather says bluntly, and Veronica just nods.

As soon as the door to her room closes, Heather makes way for her bed and sits upright, watching Veronica expectantly. Back straight. Eyebrow curved. Even if Veronica’s dead, she can’t go giving her the impression that Heather Chandler can be surprised.

It would _ruin_ her reputation in the afterlife, after all.

Veronica stands (hovers?) over the place her body had been face down in the glass. “I’m really starting to hate your room,” She says, with a half laugh. Heather is impassive. “Tough crowd.” Veronica notes, a bit nervously.

“I’m waiting for the explanation you very clearly owe me.” She says flatly. She points to her face, a perfect mask of cynicism and nonchalance. “This is my “waiting for an explanation” face.”

Veronica sighs. Do ghosts need to breathe? “I’m hoping it goes without saying I’m sorry for almost handing you drain cleaner.” A pause. “You know I would never-”

“Yes, I assumed you didn’t know it was drain cleaner when you drank it yourself and kicked the bucket on my bedroom floor.”Heather drawls, sarcastically. “Shame-inspired suicide isn’t your style, right, _Ronnie_?” Looking bashful, Veronica nods her agreement to the statement.

Heather pinches the bridge of her nose. She can almost feel the headache coming on. “What I _want_ to know is _why_ you were in my house with that wannabe Jesse James in the first place.”

Veronica has started to wander the room a little, rather than standing up straight and addressing Heather like a kid at the principal’s office. She shrugs. Looks a bit uneasy. “I came to punk you, and he offered to pick the lock. We were already hanging out when I got the idea, so....” She runs a hand through her hair, and it springs back into the slightly messy place it’d been before.

“You really _weren’t_ going to grovel, were you?” Heather asks, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, with interest.

“Not really.” Veronica says flatly. “I poured some orange juice and milk into a cup to try and make you throw up. Juvenile, but.....I figured, ‘if I’m going to die Monday, might as well go out in style!’ and thought I’d get some petty revenge.” Her voice is laced with the kind of miserable self-deprecation only a resigned (or dead) girl can produce. “Who’d have thought I’d really be dead..?”

MacNamara and Duke, they would have groveled. And Heather would have forgiven them, because they did a good job of proving their obedience. Veronica refused to grovel, and she died.

Would she have forgiven her?

Probably.

Unflinching and unsympathetic, Heather motions for Veronica to go on.

She obliges her, still put-out. “J.D. poured some drain cleaner in one of your mugs and I told him to stop being a jackass and to dump it out.” Veronica looks down at Heather’s vanity, reaching out gingerly for a pen like she’d like to play with it. Her hand phases through the wood.. “.......You can see how that went over.”

“So what now?” Heather says sharply. Touching as the explanation may be, it doesn’t mean a damn thing. Ghosts aren’t real, but here Veronica is. They don’t have any reason to be talking - but here Veronica is.“Am I being haunted? What the hell are you doing hanging around me?”

“You think I have any goddamn idea?” Veronica says in a derisive voice, and crosses her arms. “Do you really think if I wanted to haunt somebody it’d be _you_ and not my parents or some stupid suburban family or something?”

Heather arches a brow. “There’s a difference?”

Huffing, Veronica throws herself onto the bed with Heather, but there’s no thump or indication that she’s sat on it, not even an impression on the sheets. “So _clever_.” She grumbles. “But it doesn’t mean I understand why you can see me.”

“Then think harder.” Heather says flatly. “And get your ghostly essence off my fucking bed. You’re gonna get ectovomit or something on my linen.”

Veronica cocks her head and gives Heather a defiant look. “You know what? No.” She enunciates it clearly and lays down on fully the bed, using her arms as a pillow. She even has the balls to put her feet up on it, with the kind of self-righteous look one can expect from someone who’d dare to disobey Heather Chandler. “You can’t make me do anything. It doesn’t get worse than _dead_.”

Furious, Heather stands up and sits down right on top of Veronica’s head.

It does precisely fuck all aside from give her a freakish chill in her stomach, but Veronica shouts and tries to flail out of the way. Her head phases through Heather’s stomach and they make eye contact.

She hastily separates herself and scurries off to stand by the vanity again. “I don’t touch your bed and we never do that again. Deal?”

“I don’t negotiate with terrorists.” Heather says. “But yes, I’d appreciate you following my _incredibly simple_ directions to stay off my bed.” If looks could kill, Veronica would be dead twice. Instead she moodily sits down on the chair to the vanity and plays with her hair, wrapping one strand around a finger and curling it once, twice, three times, before letting it spring back into place and repeating the process. “How are you sitting on things when you can’t touch my other furniture?”

“Maybe I’m just doing a really impressive squat.” Veronica says sulkily. “You don’t know my afterlife.”

What a _child_ . Heather rolls her eyes. “Unfortunately I am the _only_ one who knows your afterlife. Unless everyone else has been ignoring you, a desire I can understand.”

“” _A desire I can understand_ ,””Veronica mimics in a mocking voice. “Would it kill you to stop being a bitch long enough to help me sort out my unfinished business?”

“Maybe.”She replies, pretending to check her nails again.

“UUUUUUUUUUGHHH.” Veronica groans, loudly, and throws her hands up. “Fine! Whatever! I give up! God, Satan, whoever, _please_ let me leave.” She clasps her hands in prayer rather dramatically, above her head. “Come on! Take me away! Eternal rest or bust!”

There’s a long silence in which absolutely nothing happens, until Veronica seems to give up, shoulders slumped.

“Assholes, all three of you.” Veronica says finally, and flops back onto the vanity chair grumpily.

They don’t talk, but the elephant in the room is rather difficult to ignore. Between the two of them, though, the most stubborn.....

Well, safe to say it takes some time for one of them to speak. It’s actually Heather that breaks the stalemate. “Can’t you use that razor wit of yours and just _come up_ with an unfinished purpose to settle?” She offers. “There has to be _something_ obvious you can tell me. Anything to kick your ass out of my house so I can get on with my _own_ life.”

“Well........” Veronica hums, in deep concentration. Nothing clicks for a while, but then something does, a flicker of recognition through her eyes. “JD.” She says, insistently. “God, I’m such an _idiot_.” She closes her eyes tightly, digs her nails into her palms. “I checked his house, he’s not there. I got distracted feeling shitty about myself at school.”

“Yeah, and? The police have probably arrested him already.” Heather says incredulously. “What’s unfinished about that?”

She shakes her head. “All their stuff is gone. _Gone_ , gone, not the-police-confiscated-it gone. He’s still out there, Heather.”

Veronica looks up. Her eyes are hollow again, piercing to the core - reminding Heather that Veronica is  _dead_ ,  not just a hologram-like copy of her old self.

“And he’s not going to stop with one.”

The door slides open. Time has a strange way of moving when you’re talking to dead people, apparently. Veronica stands there, shoulders slumped, eyes black, and Duke and Mac pass right through her. Heather thinks she hears a sniffle. “I’ll be going, then.”

The two newcomers split apart and Veronica is no longer waiting in front of the door. Duke rubs her arms through her jacket. “Jesus, what do you have your air conditioning set to, Heather? Arctic breeze?”

Heather shrugs and stands up from her bed. “You think I actually fiddle with the air conditioning? I leave it at whatever the housekeeping service prefers. Now, are you two going to lurk around in my bedroom or pick something to watch?”

* * *

“I can’t _believe_ you picked _Carrie_ ,” Heather groans, once they’ve finally finished the movie in question. “Anyone that hasn’t been on a diet of brain tumors could tell you there’s no way that dumb bitch didn’t get a period until high school. And she wouldn’t have blown up the school if that Sue slut didn’t get a mail-order conscience and tell her boyfriend to take Carrie to the prom.”

“I thought it was a little too bloody,” MacNamara says, with a calculating look. She still seems to be digesting the movie. “But not really scary. I mean, it’s like ten years old.”

“I thought we could make fun of it,” Duke grumbles in quiet defense.

“I thought it was kind of tacky too.” Veronica says idly from behind the couch, nearly causing Heather to launch herself right off of it. It takes all of Heather’s impulse control (of which there is an admittedly limited amount) not to whip around and cuss her out for scaring the shit out of her like that, but she manages to get away with just a deep breath and clenching her jaw.

Veronica seems to catch on to her error, at least. “Shit.”

Heather sighs loudly on the couch. “I _guess_ I can see the value in mocking it. What’s next? Heather, you pick something.”

MacNamara blinks. “Me?”

“No shit, you. You think Duke is picking again after Carrie? This isn’t a democracy.”

“Sorry, Heather.” She replies sheepishly. “Uhh, do you want another horror movie?”

She shrugs, crossing her arms. “Get to blockbuster and surprise me. I’m going to make some popcorn for the next one while you two are out. Okay?”

“Okay!” MacNamara pipes up cheerfully. “I’ll get you some corn nuts while we’re by the gas station~!”

“Remember to get barbeque!” Heather says distractedly, already giving the evil eye to Veronica, who seems to have forgotten she already possesses the ability to melt into the floor now and is standing, quite sheepishly, by the door to the patio. Duke and Mac walk out the door and Heather keeps her arms crossed. “Well? Have anything to say for yourself?”

She does, in fact. Most of it is nonsensical bitching. “Being dead is so _boring_ ,” Veronica whines, walking toward Heather like she’s about to fall over. “All I can do is lurk around town and watch my family and friends act depressed. I feel like a stalker.”

“And you _don’t_ when you’re silently barging in on movie night?!” She asks in disbelief. “Get a _clue_ , Ronnie. Jesus!” Disgruntled, she turns away from her, arms still crossed, as if to look away. She still ends up glancing over her shoulder, though. "Shouldn't you be looking for Dean?"

Veronica crosses her arms and huffs, sulkily blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “I've already looked everywhere in town, and I'm too scared to go any further. I’d rather watch you three ignore the plot of _Carrie_ than watch Betty and Martha cry into a photo album or my parents eat nine plates of Depression Paté.”

“What’s _with_ them and the damn paté, anyway...?” Heather muses, momentarily distracted from her righteous anger. Come to think of it, Veronica’s parents had been eating it just about every time she went over to her place....

Shrugging, the ghost shakes her head. “I don’t know either. I’d rather spaghetti every night, but it’s just......” She stops short, suddenly concentrated on some sort of mental puzzle. After a moment, she speaks again, haltingly.. “.........Can I....not eat anymore...?”

“I assume it’s part of the no-touchy-solid-objects situation.” Heather says dryly. “Are you really going to bitch about not having to eat?” For a high school girl, it’s a dream come true - or at least for the kinds of girls Heather hangs out with.

“Well...yeah! Yes I am going to bitch about it!” Comes the angry rebuttal. “Maybe Duke would be glad, but I happen to have a perfectly healthy relationship with food!” She scowls, pacing the room. “Ugh...” That same miserable, defeatist look flashes across her face, tears of frustration pricking at her eyes.

Like a static current, the frustration seems to charge the room and spread to Heather. Veronica might be a stupid bitch that threw up on her shoes and died in her bedroom - but she’s still her stupid bitch _friend_ . So she walks up to give her a look like she’d like to slap her, because she _so_ doesn’t have time to deal with a complete emotional breakdown in the fifteen minutes it’s going to take Heather and Heather to come back with corn nuts and another bad movie. “Sawyer, are you done with your fucking pity party?”

She winces away from Heather. “What do you care...?” She mumbles, crossing her arms.

“Give it a _rest_ , already. I don’t care about the specifics, I care about results. Right now, you’re dead.” Veronica flinches again. “There’s no take-backs. It happened. Bitching to _me_ ,” She points at herself here, “Is not going to reverse time. I am your only friend right now. _Un_. Singular. One. Do _not_ fuck it up.”

Veronica’s shoulders slump, but she has the tact to look grateful. “..You’re right.” Bashfully, she looks away, and leans up against the couch. She won’t make eye contact with Heather, but is that a blush? It’s so hard to tell with a dead girl. She does let off a short laugh, though. “Never thought I’d get a pep talk from _you_ again after Saturday.”

“And _I_ never thought I’d see a dead girl walking,” Heather retorts, “So maybe it’s best we keep these thoughts to ourselves. You’re still on thin ice, you know. Just because I pity you doesn’t mean I forgive you for ruining my shoes.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it, I’m a charity case.” Veronica says with a roll of her eyes. “You should probably start making that popcorn you promised Duke and Mac.”

“As if they’d actually _ask_ why I didn’t have it ready for them,” Heather says snippily, but she stands up and gets ready to start up the stove anyway. Veronica looks at the fire with interest while Heather fishes out a pot for the kernels, playing chicken with the flame, lowering and raising her hand before it got ‘too close’. Now it’s Heather’s turn to roll her eyes. “You _do_ remember you’re a ghost, right?”

Veronica scowls and lowers her hand entirely, and while _she_ doesn’t flinch, the fire flickers and goes out. The duo blink at each other, neither completely sure what happened, until Veronica recovers and tries to pound the stove a few times. “Shit,” She mutters. “That’s weird. Out of gas or something?”

“Yes, Veronica, because the gas to my house has been shut off at the exact same time you shoved your hand through my stove.” Voice dripping with sarcasm, Heather switches the stove off and gets the popcorn kernels ready anyway. When she turns it back on, it works as expected. She covers the pot. “Make yourself useful for a change and make sure that doesn’t burn while I go do something.”

She walks off before Veronica can really protest.

They’re definitely somewhere on the second floor. She thinks. Heather combs the hall for the cabinet that she’s _mostly_ sure has the green and yellow blankets stowed away, but isn’t able to find them before Veronica sticks her head through the hallway. Startled, Heather trips and has to catch herself on a doorknob before she falls. “Hey!”

“You _do_ remember I’m a ghost, right?” Veronica intones, mimicking Heather’s earlier statement and stepping all the way through the wall. When Heather scowls over at her, she rolls her eyes. “Duke and Mac are back and your popcorn needs butter. I’ll get lost for now.”

Heather bites her lip. Working around Veronica like she doesn’t see her might be difficult.....but sending her off to be alone makes her gut twist in a weird way, too.

She’s always felt strangely responsible for Veronica, in a way. A fledgling popular girl, a nerd with a backbone and a surprisingly cute face; Heather wanted to take her in and make her into something beautiful, even if she wasn’t entirely sure why. The desire to have an equal, maybe?

Heather wanted Veronica to fly with the eagles, and here she is.

.......So maybe she can compromise, just this once. “....If you can find my blankets, I guess I don’t care if you intrude on the next movie.” She says, crossing her arms.

Veronica shoots Heather a small smile. “Deal.”

* * *

By the time Heather lets Duke and MacNamara inside, Veronica is loitering around the couch. “The blankets are in the first floor guest room. Don’t forget your popcorn.”

“Duke, get the popcorn and nuke some butter for it.”

“Okay, Heather.” She walks to the kitchen and takes the pot off the stove. “Hey, you forgot to turn the stove off!”

Heather looks at Veronica, who shrugs. "I put the fire out when the popcorn was ready. She must be looking at the dial."

“I know what I did." Heather says confidently, responding to Duke. "It’s not burned, is it?” A pause; she can hear Duke opening the lid.

“...Damn, I guess not.” She sounds impressed. “You have a great sense of timing, Heather.”

Heather elects to let Duke mess around with the microwave and popcorn and watches MacNamara set up the DVD she rented. “So, what did you pick up for us?”

She beams back over at Heather. “I picked “The Princess Bride”!"

Veronica laughs so loud and for such an extensive period of time that Heather almost wishes she hadn’t invited her to stay.

Still, there’s something to be said for the evening, wrapped up in tricolor blankets and eating a fresh heap of popcorn (and BQ corn nuts for herself), accompanied by Veronica’s well-timed recitations of her favorite lines.

 _Maybe something can be salvaged of this friendship after all_ , she thinks, and it’s a thought she holds close to her heart, though one she can never say aloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere, in the distance, Martha looked up because she felt the powerful energy of the Princess Bride being put on in a house that wasn't hers. 
> 
> In other news!! Heather and Veronica make a tentative attempt to be friends again, and they learn something interesting about Veronica's interactions with kitchen appliances. also, for some reason im absolutely tickled by the idea of color coded blankets for a movie night. they would. they so would
> 
> As usual thanks for reading!! im as thirsty as ever so if u need me ill probably be rapidly refreshing the page to see if anyone has asked a question i can respond to lmao


	4. Dear god in heaven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You Can Actually Pinpoint The Exact Days I Was Assigned An Essay. 
> 
> lmfao for real though sorry this chapter took a bit longer than the last two! I was busy all week doing my homework and stuff. I just got a job, too, so updates now are probably more often than not going to take between a week or two. Nothing suuper long though (fingers crossed asdjkljg). Also!! this is important to note: I realized I made a mistake in chapter two and edited it. Just so we're clear, this story takes place more towards the middle of fall semester - the football season is over, because that's the timeline in the movie + for the college party. Homecoming has already come and gone, so the dance heather wants to coordinate for is now called the Fall Fest, which is basically my way of BSing a school dance into the story because I forgot homecoming was over. It'll be halloween themed because im a slut and of course it will be. If ur one of those folks that needs a date, we're in maybe mid october. 
> 
> Veronica made First Contact with the heathers about three or four weeks before the Drain Cleaner Incident, which is why there was no forged homecoming note. On the other hand, movie canon wouldn't work either because Veronica actually knows Martha at the time of the lunch incident. 
> 
> This all in mind. leTS PUT THE FUN IN FUNERAL

Tuesday Heather is still unwilling to broach the topic of Veronica’s untimely death, but she’s not as hard on Duke and Mac for slipping up and mentioning it. Just refusing to acknowledge it when people ask, verbally or otherwise, how she feels. 

There are flowers on all of Veronica’s desks, something she hadn’t noticed the day before. Ms. Fleming probably put them there - or maybe it was something all the teachers did on their own. They certainly didn’t make it a secret who their favorite student had been. 

The biggest difference from Monday is mostly in that Veronica is now offering her two cents on everything that follows Heather around the hallway. “You know people are saying you killed me? How’d a rumor like that even start...?”

Heather gives as subtle of a shrug as she can, then detours into the bathrooms. “I can fix my makeup myself today,” She lies(? Is it a lie if it’s true, but not something she actually plans on doing?) “Just get to the cafeteria before me and figure out what the lunchtime poll is.” 

Duke and MacNamara nod and get going, and Heather sighs and steps into a stall. “Are we gonna have a  _ problem _ ?”

“Uhh.....no?” She answers, looking abashed. “I didn’t think I said anything wrong?” it’s more of a question than a defense. 

Heather takes a deep breath and clasps her hands together, then points her fingers, still together, at Veronica. “ Veronica, I own this school. If it looks like I’m having a psychotic episode they’re going to call the fucking feds. Accidentally responding to an imaginary conversation or staring off into space too long will get attention.” 

It dawns on Veronica, slowly,, and she nods. “Riiiight. I guess it’s tricky to catch yourself...”

No shit. Heather gives Veronica a look that says about as much, and the other girl looks away. “Hey, I’m still getting used to this too, okay?! I’ll make it up to you. I can give you all the answers to the pop quiz in miss White’s class.”

“There’s a pop quiz?” 

Veronica nods. “I went to go see what she was doing during the period I used to have her and she was handing out a quiz. You’ll take it after lunch.”

The gears start to turn in Heather’s mind. Maybe Veronica can’t offer forgeries anymore, so she’ll have to fix her chronic tardiness......

But she CAN offer information. Valuable, confirmed correct, easilly gained information. Heather grins. “You wouldn’t happen to know the test schedules of  _ every _ teacher, would you?”

“I could get a look at their lesson plans if I really wanted to.....” She says uncertainly. “But half of them are so lazy and bad at staying on track that I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t do them on the days they have planned.”

Heather thinks some more about it. “How about answer keys?”

Veronica raises an eyebrow. “Are you planning on selling these? You’re already like, loaded. Do you really need to?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not about  _ money _ , Ronnie. It’s about being  _ popular _ . People like the girl that knows all the answer keys! It’ll help me keep the jocks and the idiots in my pocket, and as for the nerds, all I have to do is wave a chance for an easy 4.0 in front of their nose and they’ll do all of my homework for the next century.” 

“Why do I feel like I’m going to regret mentioning this...?” Veronica narrates to no one in particular, but reluctantly crosses her arms. “I can get you the answer sheets, but it’s going to be hard....it’s not like I can write it down or take a picture or anything....”

“Oh, shit, you’re right.” Veronica would have to memorize chunks and report them to Heather so the blonde could write them out herself - and she doesn’t care anywhere near enough to bother with that. “At least you can still read them off to me, I guess.”   
  
Looking almost offended, Veronica shoots A Look at Heather. “It’s even easier for me to just stand over your shoulder and tell you the right thing. I  _ was _ a prodigy, you know. Almost skipped all of middle school? Ring any bells?”

Heather blinks - it actually didn’t. “Skipped three grades?”

“Yeah. My parents decided not to let me because I’d have “trouble making friends”. Fat load of good it did anyway.” She huffs.“I used my genius IQ writing fake hall passes and cheating the rental system at blockbuster.” 

Well, come to think of it, Veronica  _ was _ a nerd before Heather took her in....but still. A geek on the prodigal level.....

“Don’t you have to get to lunch? You’re cutting into Duke’s puke time.” Jolted out of her thoughts, Heather spins around and makes her way for the cafeteria.

“Remember to keep your mouth shut.” She warns, not bothering to check for Veronica’s reaction. She’ll comply, probably, as long as nothing particularly interesting happens. 

Veronica settles into her old seat as Duke and MacNamara perk up. “There wasn’t a poll today,” MacNamara offers as explanation. “The yearbook committee was recruited by Ms. Fleming to help with.....”

“They’re all trying to pull enough pictures of Veronica out of their ass to make a memorial spread in the yearbook.” Duke, seeing her friend’s reluctance, interrupts bluntly. She picks at some grapes that came with the school lunch. “We already told the phlegm we were fresh out, so they said we could just go to lunch.” 

“They’re making a memorial spread?” Heather shoots a glance at Veronica who, for her part, shrugs defensively and crosses her arms. She doesn’t seem thrilled about this line of conversation. “Plenty of kids die during the school year, you know..”

Duke shakes her head. “Apparently she was like, already bouncing acceptance letters from Harvard and Brown. The student body might get over it, but the school is gonna feel this one forever - ‘sides, it’s different when it’s murder, right? All these other chumps are dying in car accidents or on drugs. That’s not sad enough for a yearbook memorial.” 

She purses her lips. Can’t really refute that one....well, whatever. Heather stabs at the salad MacNamara brought for lunch. Sharing isn’t off-limits unless it’s her corn nuts, and she didn’t feel like stopping by the lunch line. 

“Well....fair enough. What are you two going to be wearing tomorrow?” She asks once she’s finished chewing, in a conversational tone. 

“For what?” Duke looks up from her tray with an expression of deep concentration. 

“The funeral, jackass.” She scoffs. “Keep up, would you? We can’t  _ not _ go, but I swear to god if our outfits aren’t perfect I’m going to climb into the casket myself.” 

Veronica snorts. Heather is kind of glad - glad in the sense that she has a sense of humor about it, mostly, but it’s still a feeling she has. 

“I thought we weren’t going?” It’s Mac that pipes up - she was the one that was going to go regardless. Mostly because her parents were also going, but Heather is pretty sure MacNamara is the type of person that would let guilt eat at them. It’s better she show up once to the funeral than get caught visiting the grave more than once. “You said it’d be better to -”

“Well, now I’m saying we’re all going.” She cuts her off. “Think about it. What are people going to say about us if we skip a  _ funeral _ ? We’re bitches, not animals.” She makes an accusatory gesture with her fork. “We’re going. Look decent.” 

“Okay, Heather.” Duke says. If she’s relieved, she hides it well. 

There’s a bit of a pause, then, and when Heather is pretty sure the others are looking somewhere else in the cafeteria, she sneaks a glance in Veronica’s direction. She’s staring absently off into the window, like someone is screening a movie on the building beside the school and she can’t take her eyes off it. 

Heather looks back to what’s happening in the present, and when the lunch bell rings there’s a sudden, cold tingling sensation on her elbow. 

Veronica is doing her novel best not to phase her hand through entirely, but she can feel where it’s clipping. “Thanks,” She mutters. Heather thinks that if Veronica was still in her scarf-wearing days she’d have it pulled all the way up. “For, uh, saying you’ll come. And all that.” 

She shrugs, trying to make it look like she’s readjusting her bag strap, and that spells the end of it. Heather sits down in english class and, while the teacher is lecturing, writes in her notebook instead,  **“You’d better give me the answers for this quiz after that.”**

“Wow, and here I thought you’d turned over a new leaf and were taking notes,” Veronica says sarcastically. “Yeah, sure. I already said I’d spot you, didn’t I?”

Heather smiles and twirls her pen in her hand at the same time Mrs. White announces the pop quiz. The papers make their way onto everyone’s desks and Veronica peers over Heather’s shoulder with a bored expression. 

“Travesty. Myriad. Pyrotechnics. Superfluous. Inexorable.....”  This continues until the end of the quiz, Veronica correcting Heather when she spells something wrong but otherwise just rattling the words off at mach speed. 

“ **Jesus, Ronnie.** ” Is all she scribbles onto her “notes” page. 

Veronica just stands there and looks smug. “Stanford, bitch.”

This could be the start of a beautiful new partnership.

* * *

The next day at school passes in a hurry. Veronica didn’t greet Heather in the morning - or drop in unannounced in the cafeteria - but there weren’t any quizzes today, so Heather feels she can forgive the minor slight. She gets a ride to the church with Mac’s mother, a tall woman with an affection for pearls and jewelry with birds on them. She doesn’t say much, really, other than a polite greeting.

MacNamara sits in the back seat with Heather, pulling at her coat sleeves. She’s wearing all black, which is expected but still a surprise. Heather herself snuck in some velvet red cufflinks and a rose, but she supposes red is more mournful than yellow, after all. 

“You look nice.” She greets. Heather shrugs, as if to say, “don’t I always?” and MacNamara adjusts her hair a bit and shuffles in her seat.

It’s a pretty subdued affair at the church; Veronica had made a lot of new “friends” briefly before her death, and it wasn’t exactly little-known news that she’d been effectively murdered. Just because she drank the shit herself didn’t make it any less tragic. So, that in mind, the funeral isn’t exactly a subtle affair, busy cars and fussing teens with unironed formalwear arriving in droves. 

_ Whatever,  _ Heather sneers, internally. As long as they don’t take up Heather’s pew, why should she care? Duke is waiting for them by the entrance, arms crossed, and doesn’t really greet them other than with a nod of her haed. 

They march their way in and only part when Duke goes to join her parents and Heather follows MacNamara and her mother - her own parents were unable to make it, or, barring that, uninterested. It’s probably for the best. God knows her dad would try to run out for a business meeting if he was allowed to wear his watch into the building. 

The sermon goes on for long enough to give Heather an idea of the interest level of most of the senior class: zero. Everyone is respectful, obviously, but it’s rapidly becoming apparent that they showed up because the Heathers showed up, and if the Heathers showed up, you had to be there. It’s....flattering, in a way, but also a little unnerving. It’s one thing to coerce people into thinking parties are cool - filling up the room for a funeral just seems odd. The price of popularity, she supposed.

Since the death wasn’t violent, really, Veronica’s parents opted to make the funeral open-casket. One by one, students approach to pay their respects. Betty Finn walks up first - orange-rimmed glasses and cardigan intact, teary-eyed - she grows very still when she peers into the box, holding the position like there isn’t a thought in her head other than,  _ oh my god _ . Not even in a praying sort of way, just the hopeless, inarticulate repetition of a phrase -  _ oh my god.  _

After few moments she seems to shake it off and close her eyes, angling her head upwards. She lingers for a moment giving her real prayer, then leaves. 

Martha walks up next. MacNamara elbows Heather, and Heather elbows her back. Mac shrugs and returns her attention to the matter at hand. 

Really all Martha does is stare into the casket miserably and leave. She didn’t seem to give praying a shot - or, if she did, didn’t clasp her hands or otherwise indicate a Message For God. She catches up with Betty and snots all over her cardigan. Heather is pretty sure Betty repays the favor on Martha’s sweater. 

Once again, Heather is reminded of how disgusting Veronica’s old friends are, but since she’s in a church, she’ll avoid any particularly scathing commentary. Just in case. 

The way the pews are going, Duke gets up to bat before she and MacNamara do - she stands for a polite length of time, pays her respects, and rejoins her family. Procedural.

MacNamara steps up, but Heather is a little too busy wondering about what she’s going to do when she stands up. Everyone is going to be looking at her to set the tone....does she play it up? Does she have to?

Even if she was praying for real, what would she even say? She can’t exactly pray for the peaceful passing on of someone she knows for a fact is stuck here on earth.....and she doesn't know much about prayers in the first place.

Still, MacNamara eventually returns, and Heather stands up to deliver. What exactly it is she’s doing, that’s still anyone’s guess, but most of the student body is attentive, now. She wore heels to a church - not exactly subtle. 

When she peers into the casket, she half expects Veronica to open her eyes. She doesn’t look any different, really. If she prodded her cheek, though, it’d be solid. And her skin is pale, more than it used to be, and definitely not in the color her ghost sports. 

_ Dear god in heaven, _ she starts, maybe a bit sarcastically.  _ Can’t you take her back already? _

_ Amen _ . 

She opens her eyes again and sees that Veronica has failed to budge an inch from the casket, then walks back down the aisle to sit. There’s something distracting and uneasy about watching everyone else walk up - they’d only known Veronica for as long as Heather - god, they’d only known her a month.  _ She _ only knew her for a month. Should they really even  _ be _ here? The Heathers had spent most of that month in close proximity, of course, to teach Veronica how to walk and talk like a popular student must, but everyone else....

It’s actually a relief when Veronica finally comes in herself, looking like something that got clawed up and spit out by a cat, then left to limp in by itself without being dragged. 

At Heather's arched eyebrow, Veronica shrugs, looking rather unenthused, and sits down on top of the pew in front of their row, since, well, nobody is exactly going to see her doing it, right? "I've been, uh, busy today." She mumbles. "Isn't this kind of weird...? I don't even know some of these people's names. Why are they here? Did my parents invite them?"

Heather shrugs, just a little, enough that she could play it off as adjusting her blazer. Normally she'd try to get her to shut up, but she assumes funerals kind of operate like birthday parties. Nobody tells the birthday girl what to do, and similarly, Veronica can probably bitch as much as she damn well needs to at her own funeral. Heather isn't heartless. Only cruel. So she listens, and makes it clear enough that she's listening without obviously and totally blowing their cover. 

"Sorry, sorry. I know you can't exactly reply to me. I just.....ugh. I'm sitting here at my own goddamn funeral and I still don't have a clue why I'm here, yknow? Why can't anyone else hear me? Why can't I pass on? Did I fuck up somewhere?" She pauses, and looks over at the Jesus statue in the centre of the church, put-out. "I don't think I ever antagonized god. Not enough for this. Unless it's because I....." 

She stares at the ground in intense concentration. It's taking all of Heather's not to blurt out the question, but then suddenly something much more immediately interesting happens - Veronica shoots off from her perch. " _ No way _ ..” The disbelief in her voice is apparent - Heather looks over her shoulder and sees him, then, leaning in the doorway of the church. 

His motorcycle is parked right up on the curb, for easy retreat, probably, and his eyes are fixated on the casket. He almost looks sad, really....until his eyes turn to her. 

J.D’s anger is as immediate and damning as it’d been Saturday, when the wound had been fresh. Even in a stuffy church it’s enough to make her feel as if there’s a glacier in her stomach, some strange, bulky, cold thing that keeps her from moving or speaking how she normally might. 

Eventually her eyes drift, though, and she notices he has a broken nose - serves him right. The small victory is enough to ease her nerves a little. He fucked with the wrong bitch, and she can break it again. 

Where before the unnerving feeling of being present at a funeral was enough to chill the room, now there's a thick layer of tension, something else. He looks like he could strangle her from a distance. Heather keeps her eyes on him, like looking away would give him the time to clear the floor and reach her. 

“Holy shit,” She says, out loud.

And everyone turns around. 

It's a bit of a shitfest after that, some screaming, and plenty of pointing - Kurt and Ram, also present, try to body check the ex transfer student, but he's already on his motorbike and running by the time they reach the glass door. 

They pursue in their car, but Heather doubts those two brain dead bricks are going to seriously catch the bastard. She stands up and reconvenes with Duke and MacNamara by the holy water. 

“I can’t believe he showed his face at the fucking funeral....” Duke seems the most unnerved, actually, between the three of them. MacNamara is a little uneasy too, but not as defensive as Duke. She crosses her arms. “Guess it’s nice to know you really did pop him over the nose, though.”

“I told you I could handle myself, didn’t I?” Heather brags. “He’s just a wannabe with a bike. As soon as he fucks up and totals it somewhere, he’s history. The police are going to catch him.” 

“I hope you’re right, Heather...” Mac mumbles.  

She scoffs. “Of course I’m right.” Heather leads them back into the aisle. “Since the funeral is effectively over, why don’t we drop by the mall while tweedle dumb and tweedle dumber chase him around town?” 

“Actually, Heather,” MacNamara starts, which is never a promising way to begin addressing Heather Chandler, “I had, um, plans with Ram. I was going to ask Dukey to go on a double date with me...?” She pitches in a hopeful tone. 

Even Duke can’t hide her disgust at the prospect, though Heather doesn’t doubt she’ll agree to it anyway. 

Too bad Heather  _ really _  wants to go to the mall. “Reschedule, then. They’re going to be too bummed out from ruining their shot to play the hero to do anything. Besides, what was the plan? Cow tipping? We’re better than this, Heather. Play hard to get.”

She sighs. “Okay, Heather.”  

Heather looks back to the place she’d been sitting and finds that Veronica has moved. Duke sees her looking that direction and bumps shoulders with her. “Thinking heavy thoughts?” She prompts. She must think she’s looking at the casket - and she kind of is, really. One way or another she’s got her sights set on the now-dead Veronica.

“Just wondering what she’s up to now, I guess.” Heather muses, and turns on her heel. “Come on. Let’s go to the mall.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to separate the school and the funeral bits, but they weren't really long enough to stand on their own. I decided to keep a normal length chapter instead. 
> 
> On a side note: i had no idea i was spelling Mac's name wrong until i read one of the comments on the last chapter. o-oops.........im so used to spelling "Mc" as "Mac" for my pal's name i totally forgot it could be spelled without the 'a' aasjkhfsjkhg
> 
> anyway! thank you all so much for reading and i hope this chapter finds u well!


	5. Orange juice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just went on fall break for school, so I'm hoping i can crank out maybe 2 chapters in the next two weeks since I don't have much else to worry about! Wish me luck... also, speaking of people who need luck. Betty gets her first spoken lines in this chapter! I'm worried I'll spoil if i keep talking so im just gonna hope everyone enjoys the update and bail now lmao

They don’t make it as far as the door before there’s a whole new mess waiting for them.

Just as Heather is about to come down the steps in the front, Duke and MacNamara not far behind, someone walks right in front of her - very, very intentionally, she knows, because the ‘someone’ stops walking and takes up more of Heather’s precious time standing there looking like a deer on train tracks.

The sun gleams off those tacky, orange stained glasses, and Betty Finn trembles. “W-wait. I need to ask you something.”

Heather tries to step around her. Betty moves to stand in her way again, holding her hands out in a stopping motion but not daring to actually make physical contact with her - like the act of touching a Heather will burn her hands. “ _Please_ hear me out,” She says, imploringly. “Please.”

She scoffs. “I can’t believe it. Dweebette Finn actually thinks she can speak to me.” Heather is clearly addressing the other Heathers, who back her up.

“Yeah, Heather, maybe she wants to sell us her _Girl Scout cookies_ ~!” Duke chimes in in a singsong voice, leaning over the steps towards Betty. She leans in close enough to make the taller girl lean back uneasily. “Are you fundraising for your barbies, honey?”

“Honestly,” MacNamara sighs theatrically, like a beleaguered parent. “Don’t you have someone else to bother?”

While noticeably intimidated, Betty doesn’t squeak an apology and rush out with her head down. “I’m not in girl scouts...” She corrects quietly.

None of them are spectacularly interested in that snippet of information. Heather crosses her arms. “Move or I’ll make you move, sweetheart. We’ve got a hot date with the mall, and since I’m feeling _generous_ today you’ll only be on the bottom of my shit list for a week if you move _pronto_.”

“I want to know what she said!” Betty shouts, like it’s being forced out of her. She screws her eyes shut, but her fists are clenched at her sides. “You were _there_ . I need to know what _she_ said. I _need_ to know.....I need to know what happened.” Visibly shaken, she takes her glasses off and tries to clean them on her jacket. It occurs to Heather that there may be tears. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what Finn is talking about.

Before Heather has the chance to retort, MacNamara snatches the glasses out of Betty’s hands and holds them high up. “You’ll get these back friday. Don’t try it again.”

“Wait! I need those!” She protests, but they just push around her now, and Betty doesn’t seem to have the mental fortitude to stand in front of them again. She waits, frozen, on the church steps, and Heather leaves her in the dust.

“What’s her _damage_?” Duke says derisively.

Heather shrugs. “Hell if I know.” Another, quick look over her shoulder shows the sun sitting high above the church, as if the cross at the top has stuck it there like a fish on a spear. In the light, shining against her honey-brown hair, Betty looks like something preserved in amber - a bug, by Heather's standards.

“Fucking orange juice,” She grumbles, and takes Finn’s stupid ugly orange glasses for her own pocket.

Neither Duke nor MacNamara seem to get it, for obvious reasons, and Heather snaps at them, impatient. “Well? Are we getting in your jeep or what? Jesus, Heather.”

* * *

Spending time alone agitates Heather, mostly because spending time alone means spending time thinking, and spending time thinking means, inevitably, she will either get grounded for a week after maxing another credit card out of boredom or worse, she might actually _feel_ something. It’s part of the reason (or maybe one on the short list of reasons) Heather is so willing to tolerate Veronica’s presence. It gives her something to do all the damn time. But Veronica isn’t here.

Frankly, she’s offended. Is this what they call “ghosting”?

Fuck, she’s resorted to puns. She really is fucking bored. Heather snaps herself in the wrist with a hair tie. Come on. She was _just at_ the mall with Duke and Mac. It’s been half an hour. She’s going to sleep in an hour. She has to have _some_ sort of hobby, right?

Heather bites her lip and looks at the telephone.

Fuck it.

She dials up Dennis from her homework hotline. “Hey, loser. I need a phone number.”

He sucks a deep breath in. “I honestly wish I could say this was a pleasure,” He drones. “What unwitting student are you extorting today, Heather?”

“Finn, Betty.” She says snappily, twisting the phone cord around her finger. “She made the mistake of trying to speak to me this afternoon so I’m going to make her my homework whore for the semester.”

“Has it ever occurred to you I might not have a number? Even I have standards, Heather.” Dennis intones. “What if I just....didn’t know hers? What would you even do about that?”

“Fork it over or I’m leaking pictures of you making out with your left hand to the whole student body.”

Dennis sighs. “Fine, fine. I don’t want to know how you’d get those, so have it your way. You have a pen nearby?”

“No shit I have a pen nearby. I called you, remember? Spit it.” Heather scribbles the number he gives her down in nice, neat handwriting, electing against questioning Dennis’ impeccable registry of phone numbers for every girl currently attending Westerburg. Some things are better off left unknown.

It takes a ring or two for anyone to pick up. “Hello?” Comes a voice, clearly not Betty’s. Heather’s best guess is that it’s a mother or aunt.

She puts on a sugar-sweet voice. “Hello Miss Finn. It’s Heather Chandler. I was calling because I was worried about Betty. I hear she didn’t take the news well and I wanted to check on her.”

Mrs. Finn practically fawns into the phone. “Oh, goodness, how sweet,” She says, like she’d be wringing her hands if she wasn’t using one to hold the phone. “It’s true, my little Betty-Boo is devastated. Veronica was her best friend, you know. She stopped coming over as much - this sort of thing always happens when someone stops coming over as much, I told her, I said-”

God, Heather is going to puke if she hears any more. She tries to interrupt gently. “I was just worried Betty might fall behind in class because she was absent monday and yesterday. Can I give her her homework over the phone?”

“Oh, goodness!” She’s flustered again. “Of course, dear, bless your little heart - I’ll get her right now. Right now!”

The phone is muffled and Heather hears Mrs. Finn shout for Betty to come to the phone. After a bit, Betty comes onto the line. “....What are you calling me for, Chandler?”

“Heather.” She corrects, a bit aggressively. “My parents are the Chandlers.”

“How nice,” Betty says, in the distinctive tone of someone who doesn’t think something is very nice at all. “I s-still don’t know why you called me. Or how you got my phone number...”

Heather’s lips tick up in a smile. “Patience, _Betty-Boo,_ I’m getting there.”

Betty groans. “Oh, god, not the nickname. Everyone’s mom has a stupid nickname for them! It’s not weird!”

Not Heather’s. She rolls her eyes even though it’s taking place on a phone line and not face to face. “Listen, do you want me to tell you about that thing or not? I’m not running a charity over here.”

“Y-you mean......from earlier today?” It’s cautious. She suspects a catch.

“Yes. I’m bored and since there’s nothing better to do, so I thought I might as well give the public what it wanted.”

There’s a pause, and some shuffling on the other line. “Why tell me first? If you haven’t told the rest of the school, I mean.”

Heather could punch something. “ _Jesus,_ Finn, do you want to fucking know or don’t you?”

“N-no! I mean yes! I mean -” Betty sighs into the phone. “Just tell me what you want from me, Heather.” She begs. “Homework? Public humiliation? I’ll do it, whatever it is, I just want to know up front.”

“All of my homework for a month.” She commands. Heather could do it herself - fuck, she could even make Veronica do it, considering that stunt she pulled in class - but that’s not as rewarding as this. It’s reassuring, somehow. The natural order hasn’t been upset, even with vagrant murderers and dead seventeen year olds, Heather has control, and she makes whoever she damn well pleases do her homework for her.

Betty actually sounds happy. Should have made it two months. “Deal. So.....” Her voice drops to a whisper, as soft as it is hesitant. “What......what happened?”

“She puked her guts out at the party I got her invited to.” Heather says nonchalantly, like something to discuss over a magazine. A bad daytime TV soap, maybe. “So I said, “you’re dead monday, Sawyer. Better get settled in the Dumptruck and the Dweeb table, because you’re never moving an _inch_ from the bottom of the school again.”

If Betty has any complaint at being called that, she doesn’t voice it. Heather drums her fingers against the desk next to her, trying to mentally plan out the exact amount of callousness she should use describing the splashdown. Ideally detailed enough to make Betty regret asking, in the very least, but this is the version she’s anticipating going around the school, too. So it has to strike the line between indifference and soullessness. Someone popular could hear about it, after all. Even from Betty Finn.

“She showed up at my house saturday with that fucking psychopath that shot the blanks - you know who. He mixed some drain cleaner up for me and took it up the stairs....”

“J.D left the fucking city again,” Comes a third voice, and _oh god there could not be a worse time for a ghostly interruption._

Heather puts her hand over the speaker bit of the phone and looks over at Veronica, who has made herself comfortable on the desk. She’s sitting on it with her arms crossed, evidently in a worse mood than Hangover™ Heather on a Monday morning during a pop quiz.

“Do you not see me on the phone? What are you, a neanderthal? Don’t just _interrupt people_.”

Veronica scoffs. “Right! Because your gossip chain is sooo much more important than the guy that tried to kill you leaving town. You’ve sure got your priorities straight.”

Heather shoots her a Look. “Listen, can we talk about this in private? Private as in the private study I am in right now, on the phone having a private conversation?”

“Who the hell am _I_ going to tell? I don’t even know who you’re _talking_ to!” With a dramatic gesture to the phone, as if that’s going to prove her point, Veronica stands up so she can look at Heather defiantly.

“Look, I _really_ don’t have the time to-” She starts, but Betty has clearly waited long enough.

“Heather? Hello? Are you still there?”

Fuck. Heather scrambles to somehow cover the other half of the phone, but Veronica already heard it. “ _Betty_?!?”

She grimaces. Well, no hiding it now. Might as well reply. Heather moves her hand off the speaker. “Sorry, someone came into my room. Where was I?”

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t be caught dead talking to Betty?” So much for priorities. Veronica seems to have completely abandoned the idea that tracking down J.D is more important than Heather’s “Gossip Chain”.

“You were saying she came in with Dean...”  Betty prompts.

Veronica’s not an idiot, of course, so this pieces together much of the context. “Right, right,” Heather says distractedly, carefully gauging Veronica’s reaction. “ _That_ asshole.”

“Heather, are you still distracted? I can wait on the line.” Betty offers. “It’s not like I have plans tonight.” It’s offered up with a self-conscious laugh. God, just hearing it makes her want to yartz.

Veronica seems to have recognized the subject in its entirety. “Heather, you can’t - she doesn’t need to know -”

As far as Heather is concerned, Veronica has already left the room. They can talk about this later - she’s already gone over how annoying it is to have to listen to two people speak at the same time, right? Right, she has. Veronica should know better, obviously. “No, they left.”

“Alright, Heather.” Betty replies, still a touch nervous, like Heather is going to scrimp on her deal, just _not_ tell her, after all - and Heather relishes in the fact that she _can_ do that and get away clean as a whistle. But for now she has no plans of doing as such, not when Veronica is here begging her not to say anything.

The people want to know, and who is she to deny them?

“Okay, so she came in with Dean, and he said, I bet you won’t drink it because you’re chicken. I said horse shit and he tried to pass it off to me, but -”

“ _Heather_ , _STOP_.” More forcefully, now, Veronica tries to intervene. She feels something cold wash over her, shoot through her head with all the stinging pain of a brain freeze. Veronica is reaching for the phone, or trying, desperate, transparent fingers slipping through the plastic and flesh alike. “Stop, stop - why are you telling her this?”

“Veronica spent too long trying to get me to drink it, so I asked her to have a sip first. I forget what she thought she put in the glass, but it probably would’ve ended up all over my fucking carpet if it hadn’t been drain cleaner...and I didn’t have any plans to drink that shit even if she did go first.”

Betty interrupts, now, sounding curious. “You’re starting to cut out a bit, Heather. Is there a power surge or something?”

“My mom turned on the hairdryer,” Heather lies, quick on the draw. She needs to hurry it up, obviously. “Nothing to get your panties in a twist about. You can still hear me, right?” A soft noise in the affirmative.

“STOP STOP STOP STOP-” The plastic in Heather’s hand starts to heat up, gradually, and Veronica’s eyes flicker with a desperate quality she doesn’t usually see. Veronica isn’t one for begging. It’s a strangely gratifying look to see on that defiant face of hers. Her eyes flash, revealing something abyssal below the surface, void of color.

So Heather keeps going anyway. “Dean tried to stop her from drinking it, but she took a sip anyway. I wonder if she knew what was in it and didn’t have the balls to apologize properly? She gripped her throat and started to fall over....”

“ _SHE DOESN’T NEED TO HEAR THIS!”_ The ghost roars, and the phone line spits sparks, hissing static through the other end, as it’s torn away from Heather’s grip. Veronica holds it out like a still-live snake, wires jumping with excess electricity, jerking in her hand, running up her arm.

Betty Finn seems more than a little surprised at the sudden technical difficulty, yelping something Heather can’t hear all too well from her end of the line, and with a scathing look Heather takes the phone back from the ghost, feeling it burn against her skin. This has gone on long enough - and Veronica has pissed her off one too many times.

“She said your name.”

No sooner does Heather put the phone down than does the cable box it belongs to short out, completely and finally, with a jolt of lightning energy, and spit hot sparks at her arm. She flinches away and it seems to draw Veronica out of her stupor, the hazy act of standing, picturesque, with her hand clenched like claws around an invisible telephone.

“You fucking _bitch_ ,” Heather starts, walking forward, hand pressed into the place she’d been shocked on her arm.

Veronica takes a step back, eyes flitting from Heather's burnt arm and Heather herself. “I-I didn’t mean to do that - I didn’t think I could even - I was -”

“You’re _dead_ , you stupid shit.” She says, with bitter contempt. “Why can’t you fucking act like it and leave me the hell alone?”

“I’m sorry,” Veronica whimpers.

It falls on deaf ears. Heather storms out of the room. Veronica wants to explode her phone? Fine. Maybe Heather can’t tell people she talks to ghosts, but she can ruin Veronica's reputation among the living just fine. She has more phones, after all. Down in the kitchen, now vacant of all haunting activity, Heather dials up the yearbook committee, Mac, Duke, and the jocks.

The message?

“I need you to spread the word about Finn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- "Death is a private thing, v̶e̶r̶o̶n̶i̶c̶a̶ heather."
> 
> reciting of iconic movie lines aside, this chapter is a bit short by my standards, but I had to cut it off where i did for Maximum Drama bc I love being Dramatique about everything sdjkhkg. cliffhanger time.
> 
> thanks for reading! if u have any comments/criticisms/senseless yelling,,,,,u kno where to put it ;')


	6. Earthquake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! I do know where I'm going with the story, but writer's block hit me like a truck + i've been busier than expected recently. In addition to that, I had a hard time striking a balance for this chapter, and i was REALLLY wishy-washy about doing something - namely, giving you guys little scraps of Veronica's POV. it's something that I knew a from while ago I would need for specific story events where Heather wouldn't logically be there but I would still want to play the scene out, but I wasn't sure if it was necessary here and it was something I was hoping to do as infrequently as possible, because, well...Heather is the narrator. Switching it in a way that doesn't seem cheap or convey the difference between the characters is hard, and I want to make sure all the flavor text still makes sense. 
> 
> Buuut, then I figured it was better to start off with baby steps and give yall some insight on Veronica's state of mind before the end of the chapter. So I sprung for the 2 'extra' passages and just forced myself to post it as-is, because I know if I sit on it any longer I still won't be satisfied with it, haha. Sorry if this is a little awkward in places! I kinda had to find my feet again after writers block, u feel? Without further ado: the chapter! Thank you for reading and being patient with me while I got this one out~!

The clock ticks like a bomb that won’t stop winding up, repetitive movements locked in rotation, never reaching climax. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-

The bedroom, void of all wallpaper, void of the desks and bookwork and monocle and diary and dresser, lying on her back, seems for all the world a sensory deprivation chamber. Wait too long and she might forget how to breathe. It’s a conscious thought now, breathing, blinking, sighing. The door creaks, the house groans - when did her parents go out to eat? She slips through the floor, finding nothing interactive downstairs, either, so she lays down again. 

Her house is so cold. Her lungs are frigid. But there’s no blanket or cocoa that can warm her up. Only herself. 

Lazily at his food bowl, JFK stares into a space that might be filled, might not be filled - looks right at her, walks right through her, sniffs a spider on the wall instead. The cat eats it and Veronica finds she no longer has the energy to laugh. 

With some half-cooked bastardization of a smile (who’s it  _ for? _ She’s all alone. She’s all she’s got, now, and she’s all alone, so what’s it matter what kind of face she’s making?) Veronica wipes her mouth and comes away with hands stained blue.

What a joke. 

She did this to herself, after all. Everything that follows is just the natural result of her wrongdoing. 

* * *

Thursday morning the school is alight. Everyone is talking about one of three things: Betty Finn, Veronica, or what the two used to do in bed. Heather admires her handiwork as she walks through the halls. Maybe Veronica isn’t here today, but this is a rumor that won’t hit and quit in a few days. No matter when she eventually comes back - she will be immortalized as the girl who had a lesbian affair with her ex-friend.

The rumors are delicious, low hanging fruit for the student body to grasp at, something to bring a sense of normalcy back to the school, something to devour in the absence of parties or new bands or sports games. Heather has, in her endless generosity, given them something to live for. 

Duke palms a note into Heather’s hand in french class, loopy chicken scratch that can only belong to MacNamara -  **_Betty’s back in school today._ **

Heather smiles and signs the back of the note. 

**_Good._ **

Time can’t pass fast enough until lunch period, she thinks, staring off into the space beyond the blackboard. She already knows this lesson plan, anyway. How could she be bothered to pay attention to the teacher when there are greater things in motion?

She catches Dennis’ eye on the way to the mess hall, and if he has anything to say about the incident they’ve staged, he keeps his mouth shut. 

Smart boy. 

Heather gets in line for a hot lunch just to hear the results of her work. Two scoops of potatoes, an apple, and the delightful knowledge that even the stoners are mildly interested. The loser’s table is more desolate than ever, the surrounding few areas abandoned as if the social stigma can be  _ caught, _ an infectious disease. There’s a joke to be had there.

“What gave you the idea anyway?” MacNamara asks, after making a small dent in her own mashed potatoes. “About Betty and Veronica, I mean.” She clarifies. 

She shrugs, a bit defensively. “You saw them at the funeral.”

“‘Them’?” Duke prompts, looking furtively at Heather. “What, like Veronica showed up?”

Her smile drops to a grimace. Jesus, leave it for the one time she’s rid of the damn ghost to almost let it slip. “You know what I  _ meant _ . Finn flipped her lid at the funeral after she saw the body, and obviously she cared enough to stand in my way. That’s a little  _ too _ friendly if you ask me.”

MacNamara looks at her utensils, conflicted. “Well....I don’t think it’d be gay of me to wonder what you guys said.” She says, voice flimsy. 

Heather rolls her eyes. “Of course you don’t. Heather and I are  _ popular _ . Everyone would want to know what we said.”

“Wasn’t Veronica the same way?”

With a sigh, Heather sets her spork down, giving Mac a dull, irritated look. “Jesus, Heather, why are you pulling my dick like this? She was a charity case. Veronica forged papers so we all could have a little fun. That’s it.” 

For some reason, it doesn’t feel like enough to say it that way. Duke and MacNamara look at each other - they actually look like they’re talking about something Heather isn’t in on, and it pisses her off. “What?” She snaps, stabbing her potatoes again. “Do you two have  _ thoughts _ on that?”

Shockingly, Duke takes the lead. “I just feel like there’s a memo we missed, or something. One day we can’t be too heartless, and the next day we’re dragging her name through shit.” She shrugs defensively. “I just want to know why we’re changing our mind so often.”

“You think this is about  _ her _ ?” Heather glowers. “It’s all on Betty right now. I just picked Veronica because she’s not around to refute the claim, and nobody will believe Finn.” She huffs, smearing her potatoes into the lunch tray. She’s eaten enough for lunch by this rate anyway. “It’s not a big deal or anything. Just think of it as her way of helping us have fun one last time.” 

She coils some hair around her finger, moving slow. “It’s what she would have wanted, you know.”

“I guess you’re right.” Duke says. What else could she say? 

Duke shovels down the rest of her hot lunch and makes a move for the bathroom, MacNamara following not far behind. “Wanna help with the second coming?” She asks mischievously, as if trying to restore the sense of routine. 

“I’ll be right in. I want to do a quick poll first.” Heather says smoothly. “Tell Heather to get a new hobby while she waits, okay?”

“Okay.” The other blonde dashes off, and Heather decides to pay a visit to the epicenter of today’s commotion.

Heather cracks her knuckles and walks through the strife, hearing conversations stop and begin at her passing. She carries a clipboard under her arms, pretending she might actually write something in it when she gets up to Finn and Dunnstock’s table. The trick is always to let them think they have hope. 

“I’m feeling generous today, so I’ve decided to ask your thoughts on the student survey for tomorrow. How’s this? “Do you support Betty Finn’s right to shag the cheer team?” She says with a smile almost as fake as her mother’s breasts. “Between the two of us, they’re out of your league, but the phrasing could help to mitigate the social damages.” 

Betty turns away from her, but Heather yanks her back around. “It’s in  _ your _ best interest to answer me when I speak to you, you know.” 

She has replacement glasses, with black frames. Betty looks away, despondent. “There’s nothing I can do about my situation anyway....” She says. 

“Come  _ on _ , don’t be such a pillowcase. There has to be  _ something _ you can offer to earn my salvation.” Heather replies, irate. She should be used to this response, but it’s a little lackluster. Where’s the push-back? She made a false accusation and went back on her deal. Surely it warrants a  _ little _ anger.

She slumps further down. “If it didn’t work last time, why would it work now? I don’t understand.....” Betty mumbles, the latter end of whatever she’s saying becoming incomprehensible as she lays her head in her arms, seemingly trying to ignore Heather for the time being. The most infuriating thing is that it’ll have to  _ work _ , for now, since Heather can’t get her hands dirty here or threaten Betty with any lower social status. The damage is done; if Betty doesn’t care outright, Heather’s hands are tied.

Heather walks away from the encounter with a scowl.It just hasn’t had enough time to sink in yet, she reasons with herself. Either she gets to watch Veronica flip her lid whenever she comes back (she’s  _ going _ to come back, soon enough, she’s sure of it) or she gets to see the loser table crash and burn under the weight of school wide loathing. 

Win-win. She stalks into the bathroom with a strange, twisting feeling in her gut, and it’s not bulimia.

* * *

It’s dark. The fall air is an oppressive blanket of cold, and shedding trees litter the ground with leaves. She pulls at her jacket some more, feels the wind’s chill. There’s a piercing sensation in her head, like someone has driven an ice pick into the back of it. Pounding. Twisting. It hurts until the world blurs and sharpens, like a refocusing camera lens, and then it hurts some more.  

She steps out into the street.......

The world keeps moving. A lone car whizzes past. “Thank you for visiting Sherwood, Ohio...” She murmurs, stepping close to the sign, near the border of the city. She takes a deep breath. 

She’s tried it before, but this is the only recourse she has. If Heather won’t tolerate her, and there’s nothing left for her at home......it has to work this time. Veronica reaches across the border, feeling the same resistance as before, like she’s sticking her arm into a wind tunnel. There’s pressure; something keeping her arm from moving the way it normally would, thickness. It tightens around her the further she steps.

It’s not comfortable, but it’s kinda nice, feeling something solid again.Bracing herself, she steps further in, and the velocity increases, pressure compacting around her. Every step forward it feels tighter, harsher. Only a couple meters out from the city limits and it feels like her arms are going to break.

Veronica stands paralyzed in the vector, too afraid to move another inch either way and too sore to go through with it anyway, and finds herself launched back into the sidewalk beside the sign like something shot out of a tennis ball launcher. 

With a grimace, she stands up, rubbing at her head. The pain in her limbs leaves quickly - probably because she lacks real nerve endings - but it’s almost nice to feel as if she’s touched something for real again. 

Still useless though. 

She curses under her breath, and the streetlamp above her flickers out in a shower of sparks. Is it ironic? All she wanted in life was to leave, and in death, the option is taken from her. Is it cruel? Her world will always be shrinking, until the only thing left is herself.

Maybe she should try and make up with Heather. Somehow. She's pissed, but if she could just muster the courage to  _explain_  herself-

But.....there’s something weird about yesterday...something she knows she’s supposed to have noticed. She needs to know what it is before she does anything. Her head is raging, now, headache gone from bad to splitting.

Something about that phone call..........

Veronica frowns. 

What’s she missing?

* * *

Another day, another conquest. Heather wakes up earlier than usual to knock her French homework out of the way. She has to do her own work  _ sometimes,  _ and she can’t really hold Betty to the homework deal after her last move..

School is still busy, nothing new there. Heather patrols the halls, but there’s no sign of any change. The student opinion is level; not mired with depression or oversaturated with gossip about murderers. 

She’s a wonderful caretaker for them all, really. By changing the subject, she’s helped relieve the fear of Jason Dean and dead teenagers. Isn’t she generous? Isn’t she kind?

She just wishes someone would tell that to her face, is all. 

In the hallway on her way to English, she thinks she sees Veronica, or at least someone standing suspiciously still in the walkway - but nothing comes of it. She shouldn’t expect it so much. It’s not like she cares when the ghost will come back. 

Heather trades a few notes back and forth in calculus - the teacher might as well be blind, so there’s no real risk of consequence - to pass the time while Duke and MacNamara prod the student body for more information. Heather can’t ask herself without upsetting the social order, but MacNamara is talented extracting things from cheerleaders and jocks, and Duke is the designated yearbook committee consultant as well as the most willing to branch out and talk to the lower social types when Heather twists her arm. 

So far everything handed to her looks pathetic. Boy troubles, roid rage, a cheating circle for an entry level german class...it’s all a huge snorefest. She’ll just have to hope something more interesting rears its head before the scandal with Westerburg’s “secret couple” dies down. 

She says as much when the bell rings. “Where are you getting these from, anyway? Air supply? This is garbage!” Heather waves the papers with the details of the notes around. “Relationship problems aren’t exactly top priority news after guns, murder, and lesbians, Heather.” 

MacNamara squirms, wringing the front of her skirt up in her hands. “Sorry, Heather....it’s all I could get out of the cheer team.” 

“What about the football team?” She prompts. They’ve usually got some hidden gems. Like that time one of them managed to find and moon the principal after school. 

MacNamara shakes her head. “Nobody with anything fun to say there, either. Most of them were busy yesterday.”

“With  _ what _ ?” Heather asks, nose wrinkled in distaste. “Trying to remember how to breathe through their nose? It doesn’t take a lot of free time.”

“I don’t know!” She says defensively, crossing her arms with a sulking expression. “I’m just the messenger, here. Nothing but drugs and dating.” 

What a pain. Heather turns to Duke, holding the paper up and not bothering to ask. 

“If there’s nothing going on with the jocks, what makes you think the yearbook crew has anything interesting?” Sounding bored, Duke plucks the note back from Heather, rereading what she wrote down before tossing it soundly in the trash can. “You could always just make something up like you did now, but doing it too many times in a row ruins our credibility as a rumor mill.”

Fuck. She hates it when Duke makes a good point; it inflates her ego a little too much for Heather’s taste. Scowling, she lets the matter rest. “It’s a good thing I found something this solid then.” 

Duke, looking equal parts pleased and relieved, declines to comment in response to that and simply follows Heather into the cafeteria, MacNamara hot on their heels. 

When the doors swing open, Veronica is waiting at their empty table, sitting on the top with her legs dangling. Their eyes snap together and the ghost regards her coolly.  _ Finally _ , Heather thinks, with a sense of overwhelming relief,  _ we can get some action around here _ . 

“You’re such a megabitch, Heather.” Veronica says, swinging her legs over the bench, walking up to meet Heather on her approach. It’s almost condescending; shouldn’t that be Heather’s tone? But she can’t respond, and Veronica knows it. 

So she urges her on with her eyes.  _ Go on _ , she says.  _ Shout. There’s nothing you can do about it, anyway.  _

“I thought you were better than this.” There’s not even any time to dispute it, really, to roll her eyes or think up an excuse to go off somewhere alone - Veronica just....leaves. With chilling apathy, she walks through Heather to rejoin her old table. “But you don’t even  _ deserve _ my lecture.”

After a few minutes it becomes apparent the ghost meant it; Heather sneaks a glance now and again only to find the other girl coolly ignoring her. She’s about to suggest they make the rounds and introduce the poll topic to the rest of the school, but she’s beaten to the punch. 

MacNamara tugs on Heather’s sleeve. “Look,” She urges, half gleeful and half fearful. “Someone’s decided to pay Finn a visit.” 

They can’t hear what they’re saying from this distance, but Kurt and Ram are bent over the desk talking, presumably to Betty, though Martha did attempt to wave at Ram (they spent a suitable amount of time laughing at her before getting back to business). They don’t seem  _ angry, _ which means they must be horny. Sure enough, one of them starts moving his hips around in a way that no doubt relates to his genitals. Betty seems to turn away in much the same way she tried to ignore Heather yesterday; Kurt grabs her by the shirt and makes his point more clear. 

Then Veronica shoves the table over from Martha’s end and lands it on Kurt’s foot. 

Now the whole cafeteria is looking - not that any of them can see the real culprit, of course. 

“Did dumptruck just do what I think she fucking did?!” Duke whispers, though clearly intending it to be heard by Heather and Mac. She stands up and moves to the edge of the table where Heather is sitting. “Do we do something?”

“We watch.” Heather says, not taking her eyes off the disaster unfolding in front of them. 

That seems to be the decision the entire rest of the school has made as well. Since everyone has gone quiet to watch the scene, it’s easier to hear what’s going on at the other table. 

“Bitch!” Ram swears, with a step towards Martha, Kurt not far behind, likely intending to avenge his bruised foot. 

“That wasn’t - I didn’t push the table over, Ram!” 

Martha has had a crush on Ram for years. The whole school knows it, and Heather’s sure Veronica does, too. So if Veronica is so lovey-dovey on the geek squad, why would she sabotage Martha like that...? Heather squints, and sees Veronica is beginning to panic. Betty hurries over to the side of the upturned table with Martha. 

The boys don’t buy it, and try to press forward - “Stop! I-I did it!” It goes unheard. Though Veronica is standing right in front of them, her body is air, and they walk through it all the same. She’s motionless - she doesn’t turn around to see what’s happening, she just stands there with her eyes wide and her hands curled into fists. Shock. 

Ram grabs Martha by the front of her shirt ( _ this has to be the one time he’s done that to a girl without the intent of groping _ , Heather thinks sarcastically,  _ and he does it to the one girl that wouldn’t mind, no less. Pure irony _ .) “Don’t you have something to say to Kurt here, skank?”

“I’m s-sorry for pushing the l-lunch table,” Martha recites, clearly giving up on defending her actions in favor of mitigating the damages. Betty seems to be doing much the same, hiding behind Martha just about as well as she can. She might be talking to Martha? Betty is still too quiet to hear. 

Unseen by everyone else, Veronica sinks to her knees. 

“So you  _ did _ do it!” Kurt says, taking a step forward. “That hurt my foot!”

Ram grabs Kurt by the shoulder. “Come on, man, we’re seniors-”

“Martha never pushed anything!” Betty yelps, apparently unable to keep it to herself. “Stop accusing her of things she didn’t do! Maybe you just leaned on it too hard and it fell, Kurt!”

“ _ Why you little....! _ ”

The overhead lights in the cafeteria start to flicker, and Heather realizes that they are on the critical path to absolute fucking chaos. She starts marching across the cafeteria, startling Duke and Mac into following. 

“I thought you said we were watching?” Duke asks, trying to keep up with Heather’s brisk pace. The whole school is watching. If she fucks up now, they’ll......

MacNamara comes up on Heather’s other side. “Heather?”

“Shut up, both of you. This is getting out of control.” Heather is the sheriff here, and  _ everyone _ , living or dead, will submit to her rules. 

The geeks and the jocks haven’t stopped arguing in the time it takes Heather to get there, but it looks like Betty sincerely regrets opening her mouth. She takes a step back, still clinging to Martha’s arm, trying to hide behind her, but Martha doesn’t want anything to do with the situation either. “I said I was sorry!” 

The lights flicker again. Heather isn’t close enough to make her call yet, but Veronica is starting to make her nervous. The ghost gets back on her feet and begins trudging towards the action. 

Ram lets Martha go and bumps shoulders with Kurt. “Maybe if your lesbo friend here does us a favor we’ll let you off. Kurt, you’ve got a girl, right? How do you feel about some good old fashioned three-way? Y’know....just watching the girls have at it for a while is pretty hot.”

Veronica reaches out for Kurt and Ram’s shoulders. Heather arrives on the scene, only a few feet away from the action, the other Heathers not far behind.

Too late.

“Leave........us........... _ ALONE! _ ”

In unison, every single light in the cafeteria blows out, shattered glass and sparks falling from above, though luckily the latter fizzled out long before it reached anyone. Kurt and Ram both jerk back from the shoulders like they’ve been burned. The sound of breaking glass, grating and crystalline, makes everyone freeze for a second. Then, as girls in public schools are wont to do, some people scream. 

MacNamara, being one of them, yelps and quickly grabs Heather’s arm. “This is just like  _ Carrie _ !” She whispers, drawing in closely. 

“It’s - it’s probably just an earthquake or something,” Duke says, also clearly nervous, taking hold of Heather’s other arm. “Don’t say stupid things like that.”

“Get off of me, you fucking babies...” Heather hisses. 

The tables all begin rattling, gravitating towards their location, but it’s a bit slower and definitely not as noticable as the exploding lights. Right! The angry ghost. Gotta do something about the angry ghost. Veronica seems entirely unaware of the Heathers’ existences, focusing solely on the jocks and her former friends. Blown by an unseen wind, Veronica’s hair whips around her face, obscuring and revealing her blackened eyes in lapses. 

Think....there’s got to be some way to get her attention without making a spectacle of it. Heather looks back at Duke. “Did you say this was an earthquake?”

Duke shifts uncomfortably on her feet. “I mean, I think it is. It explains all the lights breaking, and the panels are weaker than the windows...” 

“We’re supposed to get under the tables, right?”

This time she just shrugs. “Be my guest. I don’t wanna get gum in my hair.”

Heather scoffs. “Like  _ I’d _ get under these fucking tables. I just want to know what everyone else is doing standing out in the open. Where are the teachers, anyway?”

“Phlegm usually eats lunch in her classroom instead of the teacher’s lounge, so she’d be the person they send.” MacNamara says with a thoughtful expression. “She probably couldn’t hear the lights blowing out over the sound of her meditative radio station, though.”

“Go get her. Maybe they’ll let us off for the day if they see the damage.”

MacNamara perks up. “Good idea, Heather!” With a quick wave, she starts making her way for the door. One witness down, and a teacher on the way.... Duke doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and the other four seem to have put their argument on pause to stare at the mess.

Heather steps up to the stage. “What happened here?”

At the sound of Heather’s voice, Veronica finally notices her presence. Regrettably, it makes this conversation even harder to pull off. “You know  _ exactly _ what happened here, you - you smug, in-fucking-sufferable -” 

“This fat bitch pushed the table onto my foot -”

“These  _ neandrethals  _ came up to them and -”

“I already apologized to Kurt!”

Heather crosses her arms. “Are you  _ done _ ?” That shuts everyone up - Martha immediately stiffens and nods her agreement like the pillowcase she is, and Kurt and Ram, being stupid but well-trained arm candy, also swallow and nod. Even Veronica pauses to give Heather another dirty look (and a, however brief, glimpse of her old self - brown eyes, neutral expression, no leaking mouth. Heather isn’t well versed in ghost bullfuckery but she thinks it must mean she’s simmering down). 

She takes a deep breath, smoothing over her skirt. “Sweeney. Kelly. I go out of my way to invite you to the party I’m hosting this weekend, personally, and what do I see? You’re  _ really _ brushing up on your conversational skills with  _ these two _ ?” Heather says in a cool voice, head lifted about as high as she can get it without the effect being comical. She looks down at her nose at them - and they stiffen again. “I’d have tried to hit you with that table again by now if it didn’t reek of loser.”

“Party?” Kurt repeats, like a particularly impressionable toddler being informed of the noise a cow makes. 

“Why  _ yes _ , Kurt. A  _ party _ !” Heather applauds in a high voice, clearly sarcastic. “I even got you and Ram some beautiful dates.” Duke preemptively grimaces and looks like she might want to make another trip to the bathroom, and not for disorder-induced puke this time. “But  _ clearly _ , you’d rather go with these two invalids, right?”

An offended gasp. “No fair! We were just-”

Heather holds one finger up. He stops. “Just embarrassing yourselves. Come on. We’re going to get dismissed anyway, so you two can treat Heather and Heather to lunch while I go get the beer ready.” 

Ah, the holy trinity. Beer, Babes, and Bribery with the aforementioned. It has never failed Heather in her dealings with the jocks. Kurt takes Duke by the hand and Ram seeks out MacNamara, who is on her way back with Fleming, who quickly ushers everyone out of the cafeteria and away from the broken glass. Just like that, the situation disappears - Heather is only just standing back to appreciate her handiwork when the final piece of this  _ incident _ makes herself known again. 

“Why am I like this..?” Heather snaps to look at Veronica, finding the ghost sinking to the floor, avoiding eye contact. Her hair is frayed. A few loose sparks fling themselves from the broken lights to her position, scattering on the floor around her. “Why can I only make stupid decisions? I can’t even do anything unless it’s to  _ hurt people _ .” She hugs her knees, so tightly it looks like she might snap them in two. “I don’t want to  _ be here _ anymore!”

Heather wasn’t going to say anything, but Veronica looks up, tearfully, and she finds herself immobilized once again. “So why...?”

Everything comes back at once, a targeted strike against Heather’s desperate gambit for control: the croquet games, the time they’d gone shopping for better clothes and Heather had to tell Veronica to stop calling pigeon-feeding elderly women ‘beautiful’ or she’d back her over with the porsche on the way out, the photo booths, the stupid hoop earrings, the roundabout way Veronica would make fun of her like Heather couldn’t catch on, even knowing everyone has always treated her like something untouchable, the  _envy_ on that Friday night party that feels like eons ago -

Her best friend is dead. She just forgot until now. 

“Ronnie...”

“I made a mistake.” The spectre vanishes, blowing away like a carving made out of dust. Heather gets the impression of having done something very bad. Is this guilt?

She walks away distractedly, and ignores the way Martha and Betty stagger along after her like they’d also been waiting. The party will take her mind off this...

Probably quite literally, seeing as she only made it up as an excuse to get involved. Who to invite last minute......?

Heather sighs, gritting her teeth, but she just can’t seem to shake that godawful sensation in the pit of her stomach. Guilt? or grief? 

She feels sick, whatever it is. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Veronica learns that her capacity for property damage is a little bit greater than previously imagined, and the brakes got busted on the Betty Subplot Train. buckle up pals bc i've got some Build Up Coming. dfhsjkfh really though i know it might seem right now like i'm taking my sweet time looping back to the main plot but this has actually all gone down in a little less than a week. I'm just trying to get a good groundwork for who we Are paying attention to before I branch out to the relationships with other characters (read, Duke and Mac are overdue for some time in the spotlight) and then finally to the main plot (episode VI: return of the JD). what can i say?? I Am Simply A Slut For Ghost Eyes, Melodrama, and a Healthy Dose of Complicated Relationships.
> 
> I'm ready 2 deliver on some good ole....confrontation + comfort......it's so close. i hope u all are ready too.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Sorry again about the slow update. As always lmk what you think! See you soon, hopefully!


	7. Carnations and cow-tipping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Sorry for the wait, holidays got a little hectic. Remember last chapter when I said there would be confrontation + comfort? Well, uhhh...........comfort......is a little further away than intended....lmfao don't hate me for this one... Complicated Relationships arrive in spades here tho so there's that !
> 
> Thanks for waiting with me, and I hope this chapter is worth that wait!

That feeling from before won’t leave her alone. Heather takes a sip of her alabama slammer (always the latest drinks, the highest alcohol concentrations, the most fashionable) and sets it down on the table with a clink, staring out at the impromptu party she’s hosting. It’s actually Veronica’s party, in a sense. She only set it up as an excuse to go instigate with her.

The way she invited people was actually a bit of a stroke of genius; by convincing everyone that they were being invited last minute out of the graciousness of Heather’s heart she fostered gratitude. And nobody but the other Heathers would be any the wiser - after all, who would mention that they only barely got invited to one of the Heathers’ parties? It’s exclusive, exotic. They want to pretend this is the jungle they live in all the time, so that’s what they say. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone fabricated entire new Heather Parties, out of thin air - parties nobody would dare question the existence of, just by virtue of being associated with the queens of Westerburg.

Heather takes another sip of her drink. Duke walks up by her right side, holding a glass with both hands. She wants this party to be over, undoubtedly. “What’s the Queen Bee doing on the sidelines of her own party?”

“The throne has to be somewhere, doesn’t it?” Heather quips. “If I’m a mythic bitch, I should be a little more mysterious. Let the idiots speculate.” It’s kind of like Gatsby, in a fucked up high school kind of way. Duke would like that analogy. Heather doesn’t use it.  

It’s a matter of image control, that’s all. She’s been a bit more cagey about parties lately. Since Veronica’s test-run, it’s become clear to Heather that she needs to be stricter, bitchier, more frigid. Unapproachable is sexy. Unapproachable is safe.

Also, Kurt and Ram are slobbering on everyone with reckless abandon, and Heather wants out of the splash zone. That’s why Duke came to her, after all.

“Reminding everyone you’re a host and not a guest?” Duke says pryingly. Unfortunately for her, Heather isn’t about to admit to experiencing an emotion at all, let alone explain the situation to someone as untrustworthy as Duke.

She shrugs her shoulders. “Something like that. Don’t you have a hot date?”

Duke makes a face. “Not the term I’d use. Do you really have to throw Kurt at _me_? I’m sure they wouldn’t mind like, sharing Mac.”

“I get you laid by the most popular guy in school and this is the thanks I get?”

A self-conscious shrug. “Maybe Courtney would be better?”

Heather sets her drink down and crosses her arms. “Do you think Courtney is better than you?”

Alarm. “God, no. She’s - she’s a total skank! Y’know, typical easy-A, totally shallow, fake boobs...”

“Right, because you don’t know a thing about implants....” Heather mutters. She sighs and shifts her weight to one leg. “Listen, Heather. You’re top real estate at Westerburg. It’s because you’re better than Courtney that Courtney won’t work better. _She’d_ be thrilled, but what is poor widdle Kurt getting out of it?” She asks, in a mock-babying voice. “He’s not special enough for a Heather?”

Heather bats her eyes and holds a hand to her heart to go along with the act, then drops it abruptly. “We need Ram and Kurt. They’re our enforcers. And they’re studs. So just go on the fucking dates when they ask you to, and smile at the fucking jokes, and let them take you fucking cow tipping. They’re too drunk to put one foot in front of the other half the time anyway.”

Duke is reluctant, definitely, but there’s never been a time she didn’t cave. Heather can see the gears turning in her head: be more strategic, cuddle up closer to Heather and hope the treatment will improve. It never will - why would Heather change it when she knows Duke will bear it no matter what, until they’re out of high school? “Sorry, Heather.”

“It’s no big,” Heather says graciously, with a smile. “Everyone has an off day.”

“Is that why you’re not socializing?” Duke asks hopefully.

Heather scowls. “I’m not everyone.” There’s a beat. Does she really want to watch a bunch of drunk high schoolers flail around each other and be questioned by Duke?

Decision made. Heather slams the last of her drink and moves for the coat rack. “I’m going for a joyride. Don’t expect me back before two, mkay? Tell Mac I went for corn nuts or something.”

“You just drank a lot of alcohol,” Duke notes. In another world, she might almost think Duke looked worried for her. But Heather knows her associates - Duke doesn't have any reason to be worried for her, so it must be an act. It's kind of nice, though.

“So what? I was drunk when I took the driver’s test and I’ll be drunk when I go for a ride now. Quit being such a pillowcase.” Heather takes her coat of the hanger, feels the keys in the pocket, and slams the door behind herself.

* * *

It’s nice and chilly out, as expected for one in the morning in Middle Of Nowhere, Ohio, so driving around with the windows down is against her best interest. There’s nobody in the car; no point doing donuts in Fleming’s lawn. She already grabbed some corn nuts, she just needs to kill the time until everyone will be unconscious back at her house. Then she can get some beauty rest.

It’s agitating. Every time she’s idle for too long, Heather keeps thinking about _that_.

Why did she care so much? How did she break the cafeteria?

Why hasn’t she done anything further?

If that were Heather....there’s no way she’d keep away. No way in hell.

“Ughhh.....” Heather hits her head against the steering wheel. Thinking is _stupid_. She should have taken more alcohol with her when she left the party.

Something pulls her to the church. There’s a motorcycle out front - Heather speeds away from the building, parks two blocks away, and sits uncomfortably in her car. He’s here? What are the fucking odds that he’s _here_ the same time Heather is this desperate to kill time?

Her hands aren’t shaking; it’s the car. Obviously. The engine must still be going, even though she knows she put it in park. She knows she isn't scared or anything. And if there’s a shudder of relief when she hears a motorcycle start and grow distant, nobody will ever know about that, either. She drives cautiously up to the front again. No bike. She lets out a breath. Oh, thank god. What an appropriate place to think that.

Heather steps out of the car and marches towards the graveyard. Coincidences are good for something, she knows that much. If she saw Dean, she’ll see Sawyer.

The grave is still decorated. Not-quite wilted flowers, a few framed photos. The inscription is blatantly recent - there’s probably still dust in some of the lettering from when it was carved two weeks ago.

Veronica is using it like a chair.

“Creepy much?” Heather starts. Veronica lolls her head over, like something pushed it, to look in Heather’s general direction.

“Creepy is what dead girls do, or so I hear. You see J.D come through?”

Heather crosses her arms, holding them close, uncomfortably. “Yeah.”

“You worried he’s going to come finish the job?” She asks, casually.

“I’m going to break his nose again if he tries it.”

Veronica looks up and meets her eyes. “No you won’t. He’s got a gun.”

Heather snorts. “So do I. We live in Ohio, not candyland. If you don’t have a gun the NRA is going to come to your door and give you one.”

“You keep guns?” Veronica seems genuinely surprised. “I would have thought your parents wouldn’t leave them alone with you.”

She huffs. “Okay, well, maybe, sure, but I know the combination to their safe. It’s not a big deal or whatever.”

“But could you shoot him?”

“Of course I could shoot him!”

“How about me?”

It gives her pause. “...I might’ve wanted to sometimes. But no, murder isn’t my thing.”

“Then J.D is gonna kill you.” Veronica returns her attention to the plants beside her gravestone. “He’ll do anything. You won’t.”

“That’s it? Seriously?” Heather asks angrily.

No eye contact. Heather bristles. “You know, I came an awfully long fucking way looking for you, so if you could just reciprocate a little -”

Veronica hums, off-note.The ground is somehow more captivating than Heather. “Why’d you come?”

Heather frowns. Opens her mouth, closes it again. Why did she come? What a stupid question. It’s so stupid Heather actually has to take a second to think about how she can answer it without incriminating herself. “I came for an _apology_ , jackass.”

“Usually when someone wants to apologize, they come to you,” Veronica points out, leaning back on her stone. She leans a little too far and, with a frustrated sigh, seems to give up on playing it cool - she’s just laying on the dirt now. She’s probably just above her coffin, her real body.

The thought makes Heather shudder. “Yeah, well, I was feeling impatient. So just bite the bullet and we can be done with it. Although you’re on _thin_ ice.....”

Veronica looks wearily back up. “Then I won’t apologize. Just get on with your life already. I was just about to _sleep_ , until J.D came around.”

A thought pops into Heather’s mind. “What did he come here for?”

“He said he loved me.” Veronica says, idling with one hand in the flowers - the newest looking ones. Carnations and roses. “He left a present.” For just a bit, the petals seem to react to Veronica running her hand through them, but soon after they stay in place.

Heather really, really, _really_ doesn’t want to get her nice skirt dirty sitting on Corpse Dirt, but not being able to see Veronica’s face is also getting on her nerves. After a minute of deliberation, she squats beside the ghost. “You know he tried to commit _murder_ , right? What did you ever see in that freak, anyway?”

Veronica meets Heather’s eyes, shoving off the ground. “I was in love with the idea of him, mostly. After the party....I ran into J.D at the 7/11. I was nervous, he wasn’t. He was so _nice_ to me, Heather.” Her voice cracks. “I wanted to think I was in love, because he was nice to me without asking for anything.”

Heather doesn’t say anything. Just Veronica getting emotional again. This is what she never had time to teach her, really, before the party. The only emotions that matter at all are anger, lust, and envy. Sadness must be eliminated. Heather pulled it off, after all.

The ghost stands up. “Heather.”

“What?” Heather replies irritably. “We both know you’re talking to me, you don’t need to say my name. God.” She crosses her arms, but is relieved she can stand again for this conversation.

Veronica looks at her with an intense expression. Her mouth is a thin line. “This is serious, okay? I’m trying to explain. It’s about Betty.”

“What does _she_ have to do with J.D and what happened in my house?”

“She’s my ex girlfriend.”

The sentence is like a bomb. Even Heather doesn’t have a comeback for that one - hadn’t Veronica just admitted she was in love with Dean? Her confusion must show on her face - something that never happens - because Veronica folds her arms, hugging herself. “We broke up about two months ago.” She says quietly. “We’d just been....experimenting a little. It wasn’t for her.” The presumed ‘ _It was for me’_ goes unsaid. “There weren’t any hard feelings, really.”

Veronica looks away pointedly. “But things were kinda, y’know, awkward and all. I set my sights higher. I just wanted to get the hell out of dodge. Graduate, keep my head down. Marry a lawyer I didn’t love and have some kids that didn’t hate me. Grow up, be an adult, and die.” She shrugs, callously, then warily meets Heather’s eyes.

“Then I ran into you in the bathroom.”

“So you decided the best cover was to run with the top bitches in Westerburg.” Heather says, flatly. It’s insulting - and a bit genius.

She nods. “There are plenty of rumors about you and the other Heathers playing a bit of the horizontal hokey-pokey for boys. I thought if I was sneaky enough....”

“We would have found you out eventually.” Heather says, a bit aggressively. She’s not sure why. Maybe because she didn’t figure it out herself? For all the reasons for Veronica to act the way she did...this was one she hadn’t thought of.

A shrug. “You almost did.”

Veronica waits a beat, clearly hesitant to go on, and Heather prompts her, still annoyed. “Then what about Dean?”

“I told you, I was in love with the idea of him. Here’s this guy I have no ties to, never treated me wrong, showed up and he’s pissed off everyone I was pissed off at....It was a match made in heaven. Probably hell, but that’s all in retrospect. He took me back to my house from the 7/11 and we talked a lot. I asked him to have sex with me. We did it, then talked some more. I thought that was as good as it’d get - figured maybe I just didn’t feel the way I felt with Betty because I’d known her for longer.”

“Are you still in love with Betty?” Heather presses. So _that’s_ why she was so furious. Obviously. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Veronica’s taste needs some real work, but at least things make sense again.

Or, they do until Veronica shakes her head. “...No. No, I’m not. I got over her right away. But she wasn’t coming to school, because she heard the rumors I’d killed myself on purpose. Then you called her....and you told her you that I was talking about her. And she must have thought...” Veronica swallows. “She must have thought it was her fault for not loving me. Something stupid. Betty might get good grades, but she’s always been naive.”

She seems relieved to have gotten that off her chest. For the first time in this conversation, her eyes harden. “I’m pissed, Heather. I’m so mad I can’t even think about what you did to her without wanting to explode again. She thinks I committed suicide because of her. She could try to do something reckless. She could _hurt_ herself. Can you live with that?”

It all starts to click into place. Absences, the funeral, the insistence to know what Veronica said. Her reaction at school to Heather’s mockery. All a sort of self-punishment. Now Veronica is worried she's going to take it further, only she has no way to talk to Betty - no way to set the record straight but Heather, and Heather is the one that started it all on a whim. 

“I want an _apology._ ” Veronica echoes Heather. She has a nasty habit of doing that. “Not for me, either.”

Heather grimaces. “Why should I? I don’t apologize to any of the other idiots whose lives I ruin.” It’s defensive, almost - but more than anything it’s blunt. She knows the power of suggestion that rumors have. The fact that all those coincidences happen to make it more suggestive to Finn isn’t her fault or her problem. The fact that Veronica happened to die in front of her isn’t her fault. It’s not her problem. It never had to be, really.

The fact that there are approximately four students a year at westerburg who commit suicide isn’t her fault.

The fact that Heather is a bitch has no correlation.

Why would she apologize, then, when all the facts point elsewhere?

Veronica glowers over at her. The air of resentment she gives off is something else. Righteous anger, all of it. She’s always been good at that. “Have a fucking _heart_ for once! Doesn’t it _matter_ at all to you what people think of you? What if you die someday and all anyone has to say is, ‘Thank God, the wicked witch is dead!’ ?”   
  
She makes a broad motion with her arms, as if to gesture to a crowd that isn’t there. “Don’t you hear what people say about you behind your back? Don’t you see the way Duke looks at you when she thinks you aren’t looking? How Mac feels with the divorce you won’t even ask her about? You can’t even see the people you’re _associating_ with, let alone the ones you’re stepping on!”

“They _love_ me,” Heather says, and this time it is defensive. Insistent. They love their queen. Hate, love, aren’t they similar enough? Fear of punishment is as good a source of affection as any. It’s how her parents get it. It’s how everyone who’s anyone gets it, really. How David got it. “You’re talking awfully big for a fucking _dead has-been_.”

If Duke or Mac wanted support, they were too weak to bother with, right? Crying to Heather wouldn’t do anything for them. They’re just sparing her the trouble. She insists this to herself.

The ghost scoffs. “ _Love you?_ Someone call the fucking pastor, it’s a miracle! Heather thinks they love her!” She pushes forward, practically headbutting the other girl. Normally her...body, if it can be called that, is cold. Now Heather feels like she’s yelling at a space heater.   
  
“Maybe that’s why you’re so fucked up.” She says in an accusatory tone. “The football team liking you or whatever - It doesn’t _mean_ anything, Heather! Nobody’s going to care about their high school sports records! They’re going to be pumping gasoline at a Shell station in two years! We’re seventeen years old! Why is it _world-ending_ if someone wears the wrong fall fashion? _Why_ can’t people just _get along?_ ”

Heather stands her ground. “It’s how the world works, dumbass. Real life sucks losers dry. If you want to fuck with the eagles-”

“You’ve gotta learn how to fly,” Veronica finishes, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Why can’t anyone see that high school is a _part_ of real life? I mean, fuck, Heather, I know you have feelings too, _some_ where...” She runs her hands through her hair, for the first time in the argument looking away from Heather. “Somewhere,” She repeats softly, “Doesn’t it hurt to think nobody will ever love you for yourself?”

She crosses her arms, and looks back at Veronica, making sure her answer is brief and perfectly enunciated. “No.”

“If that’s how you feel....I don’t have anything to say to you.” Sounding disgusted, Veronica backs away from Heather. “Enjoy the rest of high school, Chandler. Because when you’re out....everyone’s going to move on from you.”

Veronica disappears. In the moment before she does, she looks as human as Heather has ever seen her postmortem - and her disdainful brown eyes cut deep until she turns away and leaves.

It leaves Heather standing at the grave alone. She looks at the flowers, and bends to pick up one of the white carnations left behind. She twirls it in her hand.

“Nobody cares. That’s just how the world is.” She says, out loud, like that’s going to infuse it with the confidence Heather exudes on an everyday basis. It sounds _right_ , but why doesn’t it make her feel any better?

Even if Veronica _was_ right, there’s nothing either of them could do about it. If Heather steps down from her golden throne now, everyone will hate her.

Heather crushes the flower underfoot, and returns to her car. It’s time to kick some drunk teenagers out of her house.

* * *

Veronica’s not sure where exactly she means to go when she storms off. _Away from Heather_ isn’t exactly a location she can find on a map, after all. And her options are limited to Sherwood....still, the way Heather is acting is intolerable!

She just....needs to get away from it all. Just for a bit. Maybe she can’t go around pretending she’s alive anymore. She’s come close to accepting that, really - that she’s dead, that is - but sometimes the reminders are just too much. She _can’t_ do anything to help Betty, or Martha, or anyone, really.

She can’t even help _herself_ in this sorry state.

But she can go on. Has to, really, for lack of any other means of ending her existence. Veronica finds her way off the main roads, towards the outskirts of the city. It’s amazing how fast you can move when you don’t feel yourself running or walking.

Just find a place away from people. Veronica can’t fuck anything else up while she’s there, at least. No lights, no stoves, and no phones. Her.....ghost shit, for lack of any other terms, is harmless here. It’ll give her time to think.

Veronica finds her way to the pasture only to see that it is already occupied: Heather Duke’s jeep and Ram Sweeney’s car are both parked on top of the hill overlooking the fields.

She makes her own way down with interest. Unshockingly, both of the vehicle owners are accompanied by their counterparts; though they’re split into different dates - if you can call cow tipping a date.

Arms folded, Heather Duke is impatiently glancing back up to where her car is parked, then uneasily over to Mac, who is a few feet away watching Ram stumble his way up to her. Duke offers a painfully forced smile when Kurt approaches. “Hey _babe_ ,” she forces the word out like it’s painful to say. “It’s getting a little late, don’t you think?”

Kurt garbles out something that may not even be english - he _really_ had a lot to drink, it seems - then uses her shoulder to steady himself. She looks less than thrilled.

Veronica steps closer. Fuck it, right? They can’t see her, and maybe this way she’ll be able to hear what they’re saying. Ram and Heather M. are off having a different conversation, but it’s definitely more intercourse-related than the one Duke is trying to have.

“We’re just havin’ a little _fuuunn_ ,” Kurt slurs, pushing off of Heather’s shoulder and managing to stand upright. For his part, he seems happy to be there. “The night’s still young! We gotta party it up!”

With a quick glance at her watch - watches are in now, huh? Veronica remembers, vaguely, Heather Duke offering her one of those swatches as a way to accessorize fast. She wonders if Duke remembers, too - Duke checks the time. “It’s three in the morning. The night is so old that it’s morning.”

Kurt doesn’t appear terribly swayed by that information. “Details, _dee_ tails...” He slings an arm around Heather D. “What do you say we head to my place, play a little strip poker, have a little sex? I'm dyin' out here, you know! I haven't had any action all week!”

“I’d prefer croquet.”

“Strip croquet?!” He asks hopefully, bringing his other arm around. She ducks out of his embrace.

“Actually, I’m a bit tired.....”

Kurt, still buzzed out of his mind, takes a few moments to register that he’s not holding onto anything anymore, and instead stares thoughtfully after her.

Kurt looks like he’s using all three of his brain cells to think about something, and it’s such an unusual expression that Veronica can’t help but laugh at him, bringing a hand up to her mouth to cover it, regardless of the futility in that gesture. “Hey....” Kurt starts.

“What?” Heather asks warily, arms crossed. She also seems to recognize his thinking face.

“Does your snatch taste like chinese food? Cause, me and Ram were talking about that the other day and -”

“Ohhh....my god.....”  Kurt rambles on obliviously and with all the tact and grace of an ogre while Heather Duke battles a case of sudden-onset migraine. “He did _not_ just.....” Duke sighs, loudly, and brings a hand to her head. “You’ve gotta draw a line in the fucking sand somewhere, Heather,” She mutters to herself, almost encouraging. “You’ve gotta look at yourself and say, ‘what are you willing to put up with today?’ ”

“I said, nah, Ram, it’s gotta be more like -”

Duke distractedly walks away from him, towards Mac. “Heather, are you ready to leave?”

“Huh?” Heather M looks over from Ram, who’s been burying his face in her neck (previously her face) for at least a few minutes now. Duke gestures up the hill with her car keys. Mac nods in understanding, a bit awkwardly, seeing as her date is still on her. “Uh, you can go home without me if you want. I think Ram wants to take me home anyway.” She winks. “Drive safe if you are leaving!”

“Okay. Cool. Good, okay.” Duke starts up the hill. “Heather C’s gonna kill me tomorrow,” She mumbles, under her breath, “But fuck it. For the next six hours, I’m free. A world without Heather.....”

_Good for Heather D, taking a stand like that_. Veronica thinks absently. Even if ditching a date isn’t the epitome of defiance, it’s more than Heather has ever done before. With any luck, news won’t ever even reach the Bitch herself, considering the current level of intoxication among the boys.

Veronica looks around. Hea- Chandler, she corrects, probably forced Duke to go along with the date in the first place. Always fucking micromanaging.....

Kurt stumbles up the hill, nearly tripping into the mud. “ _Waiiiit!_ You never answered my question!”

Duke stares down disbelievingly. “I’m Korean, _numb-nuts._ And your question is fucking stupid anyway! Get a _life_ _!_ ” In a huff, Duke makes it the rest of the way up the hill and all but sprints into her car, speeding down the road in a roar. Can’t get away fast enough.

Veronica misses that. Maybe she should have followed her impulses, just....driven away. Out of the city limits, hid away in Seattle before facing the wrath of Chandler. She’d never have run into J.D in the 7/11. Never made her fake wake-up call. Never have died.

“Guess it’s too late for that now.” She sighs.

Kurt decides it’s better to try and tip another cow than give pursuit, so while he fucks off somewhere, Veronica watches Heather and Ram having at it. It’s so weirdly disconnecting, being here - seeing them, talking to herself, and still not being noticed.

She could say anything. Even the concept of her existence is almost voyeuristic; seeing and speaking without being seen or heard. Nobody to tell, nothing to fear for. Embarrassment has no more reason to exist, and yet she feels it anyway. Invading on other people’s intimate moments like this....

“Heather!” Veronica shouts, just to see if she can. Mac doesn’t so much as flinch in response.

She approaches Ram, sticking a cold hand through his gut. No reaction. “Martha has had a crush on you since kindergarten,” She says. “I think you have a small dick and a smaller brain.” A pause. “I think you suck at football.” No reaction.

“YOU’RE BOTH ASSHOLES TO MY FRIENDS,” Veronica says, as loudly as she can.

Nobody looks at her. She can’t tell if this is liberating or terrifyingly lonely. It’s probably both. Well, fuck it. She sighs. Maybe she should just call it a night. Veronica hasn’t slept terribly well since dying, but now that there’s really nothing else to do, maybe it will come easier? She doesn’t really feel like sticking around to watch everyone mess around out here anymore.

The sound of an engine. Headlights flash in Veronica’s eyes, and she flinches away, still instinctively afraid of being hit. When she cracks her eyes open again, she sees puffs of warm air rolling off a motorcycle like fog, cut through only by the headlight on the front. JD steps off it.

Twice in one fucking night, huh? Just her luck. He seems to walk towards her, almost.

Can he see her? She knows he’s crazy, she knows that, but maybe if he can still see her she can convince him to turn himself in, do - do _something_. Maybe she can finally pass on if he does that.

“J.D?” She asks, taking a step closer. He also does the same, starting his way down the hill towards her. “Why didn’t you say anything at the graveyard?” She's overrationalizing, she knows it. If he could see her he would have asked. Even though she knows he can't, he really does seem to be walking towards her. It can't hurt to try. She has to cling to  _some_ kind of agency. 

A click. He pulls a gun out of his trenchcoat, and flicks the safety off. It’s aimed right at her heart. That can't be a coincidence, right? If he can take perfect aim at her, then he has to be able to -

_Bang_.

Screams. But only two - everything makes sense all at once, and Veronica feels her phantom heartbeat, a mile a minute. She’s so _stupid_ it hurts, no, no, god, not like this - Veronica whips around, and finds Ram lying on the ground with a chunk missing from the back of his head, body rapidly cooling. So it was a coincidence. A sick, twisted,  _stupid_ coincidence. And it distracted her. 

“ _Go!_ _Run!_ Do **_something!!_** _”_ Veronica shouts. 

But there’s no one to hear her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up rewriting this chapter quite a lot. Originally Heather and Veronica were able to sort things out and reconcile temporarily, but I've decided that a more broad conversation needs to take place before they can - Veronica is ready to make her peace with her own issues, but Heather has a problem that still needs addressing. Well, a lot of them actually, but specifically the problem that made her try to cut ties with Veronica in the first place - the one from the college party. Rather than have them get into another argument later in the story I've decided I'm at the midpoint: once they reconcile, they'll have to stay on at least moderately friendly terms until the very end of the story (by which point, as I am sure you can guess, they're a-little-more-than-friendly with each other).
> 
> So instead of making that graveyard conversation drag on even longer, I ended up taking events from the next chapter I had planned (J.D's arrival in town and the subsequent chaos) and initiating them now. Hopefully I cut it off in time and it wasn't wayy too much talking to wade through....That all aside....
> 
> In the forest with nowhere to run and nothing to do. Can you imagine how helpless that feeling must be? 
> 
> P.S: White carnations symbolize innocence and pure love. In J.D's case, they were left due to his mistaken assumptions that Veronica needed a white knight to save her from her friends - the belief that her 'innocence' made her weak but desirable. In Heather's case....well, she did end up stepping on them. What that could mean is up to ur own interpretation, though.... ;) (usually i dont spring for such heavy handed ~what does it mean~ stuff but flower language.....is too fun to pass up....oops...)


	8. Break it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kept you waiting, didn't I?
> 
> Sorry about the extremely lengthy wait between updates. I hit a block with this story, and what had been a month without updating turned into several months without updating.... It's been 8 months now, whoops.... My brief fixation with heathers left for a while, but this huge story has been lurking in my WIPs folder taunting me, skjdghjkg. I really didn't want to let it end this way as an unfinished draft, so I forced myself through the part of the story that was giving me trouble and I'm back! Updates could still take some time, but I'm going to try my hardest not to crap out this close to the finish line. 
> 
> QUICK WARNING: this chapter has mentions of date rape. i imagine most ppl familiar with either version of Heathers are at least semi-prepared to deal with the topic, but i didn't want to make assumptions. The mentions are all in heather's half of the chapter.

It’s kind of a shitshow after the first shot is fired. Heather M is screaming loudly - god, the sound of it all - and Kurt is too, understandably, having just seen his friend get his brains blown out like a party popper. It’s the kind of wide-eyed, neck-straining horror people laugh at in horror movies, call exaggerated, accuse of breaking the mood. It’s not as funny in real life. 

Veronica thinks she’s going to be sick. J.D raises his arm again, and the two cow-tippers scatter. He follows Kurt with the barrel first. “Stop,” Veronica gasps, nails curled into her palms. “Please, god, no....” 

This feeling in the pit of her stomach hurts. Searing pain, the burning she’d felt in her throat when she died, a lack of air. She’s lightheaded. Sick. But nothing comes out of it. 

Isn’t that just like her? Despair begins to overwhelm Veronica, sinking to the ground that wouldn’t accept her, even when her real body is six feet under. This is hopeless. Without anyone around, without any sort of means of exercising control on the world, she’s useless - nothing but smoke in the wind, a dead thing cursed to observe.

There’s another gunshot, finally. A masculine scream, but J.D curses. A miss? Kurt is still running, further and further away, and J.D follows after him while Heather runs in the other direction. The optimist in Veronica thinks that maybe they’ll both escape. Someone can come, fix this. Anyone. 

The optimist in Veronica thinks wrong. Another round is fired and this time J.D does not curse, moves his gun in the other direction. She doesn’t need to look to know Kurt isn’t running anymore. Heather is still booking it away, but J.D is deceptively fast. 

On weak legs, Veronica stays where she is. 

“Every time.....” 

She had all these grand ideas, when she was alive. Praised herself for them, all the time.  _ Genius _ , she’d let people call her, the entire time believing she was just smarter than everyone else, or the only person that didn’t see a point in the conflicts of high school. 

She never did offer a solution. People should just  _ be _ nicer, she’d thought. She’d said as much to J.D, and he’d agreed - teenagers are animals, savaging each other at every turn while adults do nothing. 

Even if Veronica was still alive now, what could she have done to stop him?  _ Would _ she have stopped him, or just kept running her mouth the way she always did, even as she looked over the bodies of her classmates? This helplessness of hers......this sickening pit in her stomach that grows wider by the hour, a rot from the inside out. 

She’s so goddamn  _ worthless _ . She’s always been worthless. What good are ideals if she can’t -  _ won’t _ \- lift a finger to enact them? What good is change that can’t ever happen?

What is she good for? What could she have done if she wasn’t dead?

What can she do now that she is?

Sinking to her knees, Veronica grasps at the ground, in search of something, anything solid, to confirm her existence with. Pick up a rock, or something. No matter how she wills it to happen, her fingers slip through the dirt like air. Her breathing is choked, but the tears won’t hit the ground. The world has rejected her, it seems.

Without Heather, she’s......

“God  _ dammit... _ ” She sobs.

Heather screams, after another gunshot. Stumbles. Veronica can see even in the shaded night the bloom of  _ dark _ on her abdomen, through her pale yellow shirt -  it’s off to the side, not right through her spine, or anything. It looks like it might’ve grazed her arm and then hit her in the side from there. “She got hit....” Veronica murmurs. He won’t miss twice. But she’s still running, even through all that....

Something snaps into place the way it had back in the cafeteria. Veronica looks down at the ground and sees it in negatives, all dark with only a few bright spots, and the air around her whips up into a frenzy. 

Even knowing she can’t win, she’s still running. Hot blood streaming onto the underbrush, a flaring pain in her side, sprinting towards an uncertain, unobtainable safety. Even seeing Ram die, Kurt had run. Even seeing J.D, as cloak-and-dagger in his presentation as ever, Heather M found the will to try. 

Veronica brings her hand to her face, feeling something inside her burst. 

Something. There has to be something. Anything. 

D̶̢͚̳̮̱̟̘̙̬̱̱̬̝͕̫̞̠̒̄̽̀̋̒̀̾̇̿ͥ̽ͥ͋̿̐̚͘͡͠ô̧̻̯͔͉͉̇̿͛͆̔̐͂͆̿͛͛̃̋ ̢̛̘͔̭̭͈̥̜̗̠͖̙͉ͯ̐͋̇͗͒ͪ̒͂͋̅͛ͪ̔̍͡͝s̸̟͕̠̗͈̺̭̱͎͎͓͎̳̖͈̳̓ͣͪ͂̓͑̽ͯ́̉̾̎͛̓͗͟o̷̗͍̜̗̤͕̟̱̰̞͓ͤͭͩ̓̿́̎͂ͪ͂͑̌ͫ͗̅͒̂͢͝͞m̵̬͍̫̻̪̙̩̏̑̎̋̐̿̉̌̏ͥ͆͑ͪ̽ͦ̇͒͘͜͝ę̨̖̖̪̘͖̺̭͖̫̘̱̟͒̂͑ͬͬ̔ͦ̓̎̌͢͡t̢ͧͣ͗ͤ̚҉̟̩͙̗̣̥̯̬̞̗̺͞ͅh̵͇̳̞̩̥̻̤̗͇͖̺̭̉̉͂̀̃̆͊ͮ̆́ͥ̍̒ͩͤ̚͞͡ͅi̴̷̡͕̳͙͍͉̺̮̖̮͔̓̃̒͒ͮ̎͊̍͒ͪ͡͡n̵͍͎̼̺̟͕̰͔̰̦̻̬̜̭͚̫͈͕ͤͭ̉͆̐͋̈́͋̽ͣ̅̚͢g̈ͥ͊̌͌͏͇̪̤͖̺̗̦̤͉̯̪͔͡͡.̢̮͇̪͔̣̠͚̟̦͉͇̝̟̣̼͊ͫ̇̂ͭͩͬ͗ͬ͑ͫ̕͠ ̍̿̿̓҉̢͓̣͔̙̕̕D̢̫̤̞̠ͥ̈́̔̽̏̾̌ͣ͂͘͡ͅo̴͖̫͎̙̟͇̤͎͎̘̩̙̗̞̟ͣ̒̊́ͥͮͪ͘ ̸̛̝̮̹͙̜̱̣̯̬̺͙͌̾̏̓̊̓̒̃̂ͭ̒̽̍͘͟͟ş̶̶̺̳̫̠͉͍̬͎ͥͥ̊̇oͤͨͭ̈̇ͥ̽̿ͧͦ̊ͣ̚҉͖̮̣͕̤̰͍͚̲̳͈̩̜̘̩͍͔̖͘m̶̬͇̪̙̼̰͇̟̤̼͇̯̻̜̐̊͊̚͞e̸̱͉̩̤̫̗̫̙̫̻̦̞̦̙̖̙̦͚ͭ̾̅̄͒̾̍ͭ̀̔̃̑͐̃̌͊͘ͅt̷̯͈͖̳̬̭̻̔ͭ̓̽͠h͇͖̮̼̻̞ͤ͒̇͑͝͡͞ͅĭ̷̲͕̞̯̠̯͈͓͎̭̠͉̗̬͍͈̹̯̦̾̆ͪͦ̇ͬ̈́ͤ̉ͤ͆̓̎̅͗̒̚͝ṉ̸̵̠̝̬̺͉̰̞̝͚̫ͣ͌̔ͨ͊̾͢͞g̍ͥ̉̔̄̓ͧ͂͆҉̶̻̯͔͇̙̭̦̝̩̳̣̯̻ͅ.̢̮̭̙͎̭͔̟̯͆͋̈́ͧ̿̈̐́͆̌ͮͭ̇̋̀̂̊̃͟ͅ ̷̙̼̬̠̟͉̞ͩ̿͌ͯ̄͋̊́̏ͩ̓̑͛ͥͨ̚͠D̨̹̭̣̝̬̥̤̤̺̪̙͉͚̘̙̻̘̺̋̂̔͊̒͊̕͟͞͠ͅo̧ͭ͋̈́̂͏̡̩͍̩͔̫͚̻͙̝͍ ̴̷̴̻̻̞̲͉͎̤̗̥͕͔̜̦͔ͨͨ̒̆ͯ͆̇̉͛͊̈́̆̚ͅs̡̡̯͓̹̜͙̜̟̰̻̤͖͍̹̱̥̮̩͕͋̓̾̿̾͡o̴̶̶̬̫͚̭̩̼͍̭͙͈̲͇̘̫̥̖̺̮̊̾͒͑͗̆͒̾͘͜mͮͧ̊̒̆̆͂̿̊͑̃̂̀҉̡͝҉̝͕̹̹̥͈̣̯̻̳̰͙eͤͥͨ̔͐̈́̈̔ͦ͆ͬ̏ͭ͊̄͛͏̰̻̯̦͍̺͓͉̺̘̘̟̕͟t̴ͨ̐ͯ̃̊́͛̈́̑͆ͭ̀͆̅ͩ͂҉̬̜̥̟̬̤̪̯͙̪̪͎͙̘h̷̛͙͚̫͈̩̳̤͕͓̙̱̥̳̥̮̙̙̄̒͊̋̈́ͣͭ͛́͟͡͠į̙̘͍̫̺̪̼̜̼̩͆̎ͥ̏̅͛̓̑̈́͋ͮ̽̎̓ͦ̅ͨͅn̛͚̬̺͙̻͎͖̦̙̜͇̥̖̘̯̣̺̠͙̅̈̇̌͆̾͗͐͂̇̀̀͋͞͞ģ̢ͦͬ͌̅̒͌͛͛̒̚͏̮̗͈̩̣̖̼͖̳͎̜̬ͅͅ.̵̧̦̲̺̞̣͙̤͉̼̞͍̝̰̐̈́̅̒̆͘͢ ̴̧̨̗̼̱̦̰̹̬͕̻̂ͨͮͤ̓͗̈͆̍ͩ̀̏͐̉Ḑ̵̛̪͔̘̳̯̖̩̹̖͈̪͈̂̌̏̋̿͐͌͋͒̍̈̉͘o͗̀̂̐̅̆̐̃ͭ́̿͆̀͋̔ͣ͏͏̠̦̗͖̥̲̳̭͕̟͚̲͙̣̞̰͇̙ ̴̡͉̙͇̞̬̙̥͇̭̳̳̳̙̼̫̃̌̆̒́ͤ̍͂͒̔͗́̆̍͘͘ş̏̃͛̑ͭ̓͘҉̭͈͙̯̙̦̣̭͙̹͈̯̠̕ơ̴̵̵̲̤͍̗͇̯̱͍̪̪̝̥ͪ̔̈͋ͧ̅ͯ͛̃̾͌͌̚m̵̡̦̯͇̞͈͙͙̻͇̝̖̲̠̲̤̩̫̽͐̄̄̋e̸͈̻̜͚̤̺̫͚͙̹̦͙̹̘̗̬͓͇͎͛ͬ͆̚͡t̛͕̰̹̪̯̝͉̥̣̤͇̻̘̣̺͉͓̤̃̿ͥ̔͊̐̀͝hͨ͋̅̽͌̽̔͒҉͏̛̜͖̱̲͇̻̠̘̘̜͎̝̟̳̯̭̤̭i̡̲̟̲̞̲̻͉̹͓̹͉̲̞͐ͯͨ̓ͩ͐̎ͨ̓͂͆͊ͯ̿̐ͪͣ͛̕͜͠ņ̨̛͈̭̣̦̲͕̻͍̦͇͍̟̻ͪ̐̆̔̄̊̿ͨͦ͛́̅͂̚͠͡g̷̵̢̮̰̲̬̳̗̯̪̗͙̱ͣ̐̅͌͌̃͗ͣ̅͆ͥͥͩ̑͐̑̚.̶͈̝͕̝̳̲͚͉̦̺̼̻̦͇̾͒̓͗ͣ͞ ̶̶̢̛͆͋̔̀ͣͨ̎ͫͯ̿̄̇̿͒̍̎̏̚҉̦̗̼̤̠̝

̄̉͊̓̇͆͐̑͐̊̽̉̽ͩ̚͏̲͉͚͙̥͖̣̮̱̙̥̲̗͓͈

_ It can’t _ **_end_ ** _ like this. _

That migraine that’s been eating at her hits a crescendo, and all the pressure shatters at once, like a smashed in window. 

Oh. 

She’s on the motorcycle. The engine hums beneath her, and she tests the grips. Her hands feel solid.....or, at least, they treat the motorcycle like they are. She looks back up to see the chase is still spiralling deeper into the woods and floors it. 

Veronica tears down the hill, because even if the bike flips there’s no real danger to her, not really (she’s already dead, after all) and the motorbike roars along the trail. As Heather and J.D come into view, there’s another shot, but this one is an obvious miss, since he looked away to wonder how the hell his own motorcycle made it down without him. 

The wheel catches on a rock, tipping back-first over the hill, and the smoke from the exhaust leaves a cloudy trail above the two, J.D and herself, obscuring the sky. Sometime in the midst of it all she falls, slipping off the seat and watching, as if from an outsider’s perspective, a third degree of separation, the results.

The motorcycle bears down on J.D with a  _ crash _ , the sound of the small windshield breaking. This is the first time she’s heard him scream, and the bike bowls him over, landing wheels-up, spinning uselessly. She tries to catch her breath. 

After a long moment, he crawls out from under the vehicle, shoving it off himself with his left arm. The right one is scraped, hard, and he doesn’t seem too keen on using it. “ _ Fuck _ ,” he says, looking out after Heather M, who stumbled up the hill a bit further from the two of them. She doesn’t seem able to run any further, only barely managing to break the fall before she lands on her knees, and then her chest. “Fuck.” He repeats. He’s crying.

Pain? Guilt? 

Seemingly surveying the situation, he staggers to his feet and slowly tips the motorcycle back over. He grimaces every time something brushes against his side too hard. “I really......screwed that up.....” With a heavier grimace, he leans against the bike for balance. 

“Hold it,” Veronica reaches out, trying to get control of the bike again, but the handles slip through her grasp. Shit. “Come on, come on...... _ work _ , dammit....!” No matter how much she wills it, her fingers slip through the handles, and J.D. Neither budges from her efforts.

No dice. Whatever had come over her and allowed her to intervene, it’s spent. J.D glances over the bodies  - Kurt and Ram, and now Heather, who has stopped moving - and slowly putters away on his motorbike, looking shell-shocked. There’s seemingly nothing she can do, so she watches him go, stomach churning.

The world seems to calm down. The crickets start making noises again, the breeze returns....Veronica’s own heartbeat, phantom but determined to continue, nearly slows down until she remembers the reason she’d driven him off in the first place. 

Everyone is dead. 

Ram is a clear lost cause -  he died on impact, she  _ knows _ he did. Veronica makes her way to Kurt, next, and he’s still bleeding -  still alive? The bullet is buried in his lower back, but if she stands by him long enough, she can make out breathing. Rise, fall. It’s shallow, but still - !

Heather is last, and closest to where J.D retreated from. Veronica kneels by the blonde. This.... feels different. She got hit in the side and the left leg. She’s still breathing, but bleeding even more than Kurt had been - probably because she’d been hit twice. She’s turned over on her side. 

Her eyes are still open. 

It’s not in the dead way, either, although they’ve been brighter in the past. Heather looks frantically, in all directions, but doesn’t seem to try and move anymore. Maybe she thinks J.D isn’t gone? As Veronica mulls it over, MacNamara does something surprising. 

She stops looking everywhere, and her eyes, red with tears and frantic with distress, focus solely on Veronica herself. 

Veronica doesn’t know if she wants to laugh or cry. Twice in one day, to get the same wrong idea.....fate really can be cruel.....

Mac’s ragged breathing is the sole accompaniment of Veronica’s thoughts, now. Kurt and Mac....they might both live, if she can get them help fast enough. But she can’t waste time - and she can’t talk to anyone but Heather. 

Some things are more important than a catfight. She needs to go _now,_ if she wants to have any chance at all getting an ambulance here in time for the two still alive.

Just as she closes her eyes and prepares to get on her way, already mentally mapping the thing out, a familiar, hoarse voice calls after her. 

“D-don’t....don’t l-lea...leave me.....I don’t...wanna die alone.....”

It freezes her in her tracks. “Heather....? Are you.....talking to me?”

“ _ Please _ ,” She hiccups, “I’m scared......I’m scared...”

“No one else is going to die here!” With sudden (and completely unfounded) confidence, Veronica steps back towards Heather, hands balled into fists. “Just don't move.  Kurt is still breathing, too.” She’s trying  her best, but....

If Heather M can see her now, what does that mean? 

Is she dying? Ram doesn’t seem to have left a ghost, but maybe it’s like some sixth sense bullshit..ghosts can’t see other ghosts, or something. Mac could be dying, and in the process of getting trapped in the same hellish limbo as Veronica. Kurt is unconscious, so she can’t test it against him, but in any case, it’s bad. 

What Heather C and Heather M have in common, aside from a name...... an encounter with J.D? An encounter with death....? Maybe watching someone die allows you to see ghosts, but then, why is Heather not reacting to, say, Ram? 

Being shot, and almost being poisoned.........

Veronica doesn’t like the looks of this conundrum one bit. 

“I won’t let you or Kurt die. I’ll come back with help.” She says, as firmly as she’s able. If Mac even hears it, she doesn’t react. “I...I won’t let it happen. I swear.” 

She closes her eyes and lets her consciousness drift back to Heather’s house, a seeming  _ tug _ to the spot she’d died on.

* * *

As ever, Heather is drowning her boredom in phone calls and fashion magazines, having already skimmed through her sparknotes copy of  _ The Bell Jar _ , and being tired of homework besides - when she’s interrupted.

Her first reaction is to stiffen; turning away from Veronica isn’t quite so hard as it’d been just after her death. She speaks coolly and with precision. “It’s too late to grovel. Go back to your grave and rot for all I care.”

“This isn’t about  _ us _ .” Veronica replies tightly, and something in the way she phrases it makes Heather go on the defensive all over again, shoulders tightening up as her mouth twists into a frown. Before she gets the chance to open her mouth again, suggest to Veronica that if it’s not about her then she  _ really _ has no reason to care, but the ghost comes around to face her and cuts her off. 

She’s got her hands balled up, like they’re grasping at a fabric that’s not there anymore, her jaw clenched tight as a vice grip. “I  _ know _ you’re mad at me.  _ I’m _ mad at me. But if you don’t call the police and get them down to the cow fields, Heather and Kurt will die. Please. Please, just do something......... _ Please _ .......I’m begging you....”

Veronica looks like it’s all she can do to repeat the phrase.  _ Please _ .  _ Begging _ . 

It’s the first time Heather’s ever seen her grovel, even for a minute. 

Pushing past the dry feeling in her throat, she stands up, for once without a word, and moves for the phone. “What happened,” Heather asks, when she finally realizes in the hallway on her way to the kitchen that she might need something to, you know,  _ tell _ the police station. 

“Kurt and Ram took Duke and Mac cow-tipping. Duke left, but about ten minutes later J.D showed up.” Veronica’s voice is wavering so badly it almost seems like if she turned around her ghost would be too, phasing in and out of existence. Weak, grasping. “Ram is dead. Kurt and Heather were shot too, but not in the head. They could still..... still be alive.”

Lovely. Reassuring. Heather’s bad case of dry mouth takes a worse turn, but she gets over to the phone and dials 911. It hasn’t even been that long since the last time, she thinks, with a humorless mental laugh. What kind of high schooler calls in a murder twice in the same month?

“Hello....I was out in the fields with my friends earlier a-and I left early....” She lies, deciding to take Duke’s version of events as her own, “When I was leaving I thought I heard gunshots, but I was too scared to turn around.....Please, send someone out to the oak grove field to check on them! I’m scared.....” 

With that, she hangs up, not giving the dispatcher her name. To add to the effect, of course.....

Heather sits, numbly, back in the chair beside her phone. 

Ram is dead. Kurt might be dead.  _ Mac _ might be dead. 

It’s so easy, usually, being this unflappable. She didn’t even watch the violence happen. Had she cried for Veronica? No, she can’t recall having done any such thing. Even the memory, the way the life slipped out of her eyes, the horror, the bile, the drano, the paleness of death, fails to invoke such a reaction from her. It’s not any different here.

Does she really keep her eyes dry out of pure determination?

Or has she simply forgotten how to cry?

Heather sits, instead. Wonders when her life went to hell and comes up with a pretty good estimate.

She looks up and sees Veronica, staring dumbly into space, like she’s not sure what to do with herself. Hell, she probably isn’t. 

“Don’t you wish you were dead for real?” Heather asks, impulsively, without even looking straight at the ghost. “I mean, this is a shit afterlife you’re having.”

“No kidding.” Veronica shakes herself a bit, like dust has collected in the brief time she’s been in Heather’s spotless house. She stares into space a little longer, seemingly in a daze. “I’m....going to go check on them. Maybe I can -”

“Stay with me.” Heather says, before she can even figure out why. She isn’t looking at Veronica. Her hands are on her knees, and the tremor is so slight she almost can’t notice it herself. Maybe she’ll get lucky and Veronica won’t either. 

Veronica pauses, partway through walking off already. She looks over her shoulder at Heather, eyes roaming. The question comes softly, gently, enough to make Heather feel sick. “...Why?”

_ Why _ , Heather repeats with an internal sneer. How dare Veronica pity her. How dare she come into her house and tell her her friends are dead and dying with such a sad, determined look. How dare she look so, so -  _ certain _ , of what she’s doing. 

Heather isn’t a dog to be pitied and coddled. She’s the fucking Queen of Westerburg. She’s the mythic bitch. She’s rich. She’s popular. 

She’s only seventeen. 

She’s scared. 

“What the fuck do you care, ‘ _ why _ ’? Just - stay. Stay....” Something in her voice breaks; something warm plops onto her knee. It’s been so long it takes her a second to realize she’s crying. Heather buries her face in her hands, curled into fists, shoving her wrists against her eyes and ruining her mascara, desperate to keep herself from leaking anything further. 

This is - this is all Veronica’s fault. Everything......nothing like this would have happened if she didn’t  _ ruin _ everything at the party - if she didn’t run crying to Dean, if she didn’t make Heather take her in, if she didn’t forge that fucking hall pass, if she didn’t break up with Betty Finn, if she didn’t, if she wasn’t -

“Heather...” Veronica has come closer, almost bent over to look at her, hands listless and moving towards her like she’s trying to console her somehow. It makes her sick. It makes her mad. 

Heather lunges, trying to swipe Veronica’s worthless reaches out of the way, despite the futility of such an action. Either way, Veronica pulls back, giving her more space. “Heather...?”

“Shut up! Stop trying to act all high and mighty, you  _ bitch _ . This is all your fault!” She snarls, hands curled as tightly as they’ll go - she thinks one of her nails broke. Just another thing that didn’t have to happen. 

Veronica’s mouth settles into a thin line. “I know that. I’m trying to make it right, but I need help.” Crossing her arms, Veronica settles herself again, glancing away from Heather guiltily. “There’s not much I can do since I’m dead.”

There’s a long, sullen silence between the two of them. 

“I hate you.” Heather says. She’s recovered her voice, but not her fire, or at least not yet. There is no sniffing, no disgusted affectation, no sarcasm or venom. She just....says it. 

“Join the club. I know we’ve been at odds since I threw up on you, but -”

Heather slams her fist down on the vanity. “It was never  _ about _ the fucking puke! You  _ dense _ bitch...” 

She’s so fucking stupid. For a prodigy, she hasn’t been able to put two and two together for weeks. Even on top of all the other shit she’s caused Heather, she doesn’t even know what she did to start this whole mess - the cardinal sin she committed that led to her death in Heather’s bedroom. She’s such a fucking idiot, Heather almost wants to laugh. 

There doesn’t appear to be any recollection in her face either, although she’s staring at Heather with that same old concentrated expression, brows knit together tightly, a small, concerned frown. “It wasn’t?”

She shakes her head with a disbelieving laugh. “You  _ ruined _ us, Ronnie. Your first Remmington party, and you make yourself out to be some sort of  _ prude _ ! I was going to suggest leaving early, but then your frat boy came up to David and told him -”

“You wanted to leave?” Veronica interjects, more confused than ever, but Heather is already rolling, and there’s no stopping her. Veronica will hear what she has to say, or suffer the consequences. 

“He told him, told him you were a  _ tease _ and that there’s no point in inviting us to a college party again if we were gonna act like that even though it was only  _ you _ and -”

“Heather, what the fuck are you talking about?” It’s loud enough this time to earn a pause, which Heather takes to center herself, and Veronica crosses her arms. “I never teased him. He wanted a blow job and I told him to eat shit.”

“Veronica, you  _ dense fuck _ ,” Heather growls. Veronica backs up from her reach, a worried attempt to sidestep any possible lunges. “Do you not get what it means to be popular?  _ Existing _ is being a tease. Every single person at that party wanted you -  _ us _ . Did you  _ really _ think a couple of teenage girls got into a college party by being  _ friends _ with the host? Use your fucking Standford brain for once and figure it out! We were party toys! The appetizers.”

Veronica gives Heather a hard look. “David wanted sex.” She says. It’s no longer a question. “You didn’t.” The methodical, slow-paced way she says it makes Heather want to scream, but she can’t. 

It’s hard to swallow. All her words clot together in her throat, scorn, denial,  _ something _ , none of it wants to come out. 

A long beat passes, until the pain in her throat is searing, sore from the held-back sounds and spasming with the effort. But if she cries, she’s.....

Heather stills; Veronica crept closer while she was focused on herself. The ghost stoops to eye level with her where she sits by her vanity. She doesn’t reach for her. “....I didn’t know.” 

“I thought you’d back me up.” She says bitterly. 

In her head, it’d seemed to cut-and-dry. Something she’d do, gain college approval from, and abuse as a means to push her hierarchy ever-higher. College ‘friends’ from David might spawn into meaningful connections when she eventually moved on from high school, and she’d be ahead of the game in the college pecking order. Veronica was a subordinate, so Heather signed her up for the job. 

That clawing, anxious feeling in her gut only arose at the party when it was too late to back out, David would rat her out to everyone if she didn’t go along with it, but she wasn’t ready - a college boyfriend only existed in the abstract, marked in her schemes with late-night phone calls and occasional drive-by meetings in her porsche. The same standard operating procedure she’d used on countless high school guys. He’d never been so close to her before. She’d never been so revolted before. 

She was trapped, and so was Veronica - until she wasn’t. 

Suffering that sort of indignity alone was the unbearable part. She thought she was untouchable. She thought she was in control. She thought Veronica was a lost lamb, useless without her. 

But Veronica never needed anyone’s approval after all, and Heather needed everyone’s. Her college conquest didn’t earn her anything.

“I’m sorry.” Veronica says. 

It’s not enough. 

“Popular was never worth that to me.”

She knows that. 

“Maybe it wasn’t to you either.” With a humorless laugh, Veronica shakes her head. She seems frustrated, pacing the length of the room. “But even if it was.....what happened was fucked up! David was fucked up! We’re only seventeen, you know? These are adults, and they’re preying on high schoolers who wanna be  _ cool. _ ”

Veronica grits her teeth. “I had no clue even you weren't immune to that kind of thing.”

“We both thought some pretty stupid things.” Tonelessly, Heather replies, trying to pat her eyes dry. She’s already next to her vanity, so she might as well consider this whole coat of makeup a lost cause. Where are her wipes....? “It doesn’t matter, if I’m being honest. You botched the party, sure, but I’ve got all of senior year to pick a sorority I’ll get the most influence in. I just won’t go to Remmington - that place is a cesspool anyway. If it weren’t for the vomit, I’d say you did me a favor, in hindsight.” 

“What are you.... What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Of course it _matters,_  you... Hey!” Heather crumbles the makeup wipe, but before she can bite out a retort, she’s pulled to face Veronica. The ghost's arm rests on her shoulder. “ _Listen!_ There’s no  _ point _ in saving face right now. If you’re suffering, then-”

“Then what? You act like you pity me and give me another lecture? I fucked up, I paid for it, and I’m still on top of things. I’m not so hypocritical I can’t recognize when I’ve met my match.” She tries to tug her arm away, but Veronica holds firm. “Let go of me.”

“No.” 

Angrily, Heather continues trying to free her arm, but Veronica holds fast. She’s not even  _ saying _ anything, it’s - it’s infuriating! “Come  _ on _ , you stupid - dramatic - bitch - !”

“You have to pull it together and think about what you’re saying. If you fall apart, Mac isn’t going to have anyone when she gets up. Duke is going to have a meltdown when she finds out what happened, and Mac’s parents are too wrapped up in their divorce to do much other than yell about who should have been watching her.” Veronica narrows her eyes. “Do you understand? I’m not pitying you right now, I’m just making sure you’re fit enough to clean up this mess. It’s your fault Mac doesn’t socialize with anyone else,  _ so _ , it’s your responsibility to look after her.”

Veronica finally lets go of Heather, folding her arms as she mutters, “Besides, I figured since it’s  _ our _ falling out we’re talking about, and I can’t repeat anything to anyone, you might as well tell me....” 

“What makes you think I have anything else to tell?” She retorts. “It’s bad enough that I wasted a whole coat of makeup snotting on you. You’ve done enough damage with your little therapy session today.”

“ _Did I now?_ ” Challenge in her voice, Veronica tries to press her advantage. “I mean, you haven’t gotten your money’s worth out of this therapy session yet. I haven’t even asked about your obvious mommy and daddy issues.”

Heather scowls. “Don’t even _try_ to go there. Look, what do you  _ want _ from me? Everyone wants something. If you’re worried about Mac, fine, whatever. She’s still  in , so of course I’m going to take care of her. We can even spin this little tragedy as a charm point when she’s recovered. Does that satisfy you?”

“Tell me why you’re so hell-bent on being cool.”

“What?” It’s enough to make Heather turn around completely in the chair, fixing a deadpan look at the ghost, who returns it with a level gaze.

“I’ll leave you alone if you do.” Veronica tacks on, as if to reassure her. “It’s just been eating me. I’ve noticed this trend with all my friends... and even me, I guess. I was so worried about not being cool anymore that I accidentally wound up drinking bleach. And if you’re even admitting that reaching the top can be a double-edged sword... I want to know what it means to you.”

“It’s not something I think about much.” 

“Well, we both know  _ that’s _ a load of bullshit.”

Heather relents. “I’ve always been cool. I’m rich and gorgeous. But getting complacent doesn’t do anyone favors. I don’t have to try  _ hard _ , but not trying? That would be inexcusable.”

Veronica seems unconvinced. “Why? I try to think about what you could possibly stand to gain, and I can’t. What don’t you have, that being cool will get you? As you said, you're rich, gorgeous, and even if you never do your own homework, you’re not an idiot, either. What’s _missing_?”

Maybe Veronica doesn’t understand because she’d started out early as a geek. All the undesirables at one point or another have to cling to sentimentality, some idea that bonding, clinging together, will lead to something called ‘emotional fulfilment’, but that’s only because they don’t know what it feels like to be on top. It's an indescribable feeling, really. But..

For Heather, the correct word might be euphoria. 

The feeling of everyone having their eyes on her, paying attention to her slightest likes and dislikes, philandering and breaking rules at her discretion, offering anything to get her favor, homework, money, their very existences. Heather can go to school and feel like a god among mortals -

But outside of school, what is she? A show-pony. If it weren’t for the odd visit to her grandmother’s and a few declined credit cards, her parents would probably forget she lived in the house in Ohio. They prefer the Maryland house. Or the New York house. She’s not sure where’s trendier right now. 

So she’s a bit of a tyrant at school - so what? It’s not as if they don’t eat it up, so it’s fine if she takes charge. They want a Heather - they want  _ the _ Heather. Someone to strive for, to instill order, to follow the example of. And Heather _lives_ off the attention - the sense of power and importance it gives her. 

Any indignity, any strife, can be overlooked in favor of getting more. Besides, it’s too late to stop. If Heather tried to give up her throne, nobody would trust her  _ or _ have a use for her. She’d sink like a rock. Adult life may be different, but she’s still got 2 years to dominate the playing field. 

“...It gives me something to do,” she says eventually, letting loose a sigh. 

The conversation, at this point, has drained her so thoroughly she barely has it in her to raise her voice. First she hears about another murder, then that Mac has been shot, then relives her falling out with Ronnie, and now she has to think about her parents? It’s like some higher power out there  _ wants _ her to brain herself. Too bad she’s too tired for that, too. “I plateaued at Westerburg, and setting up my next conquest...backfired. I’m just keeping my grip firm.”

Veronica hums. “Everyone treats you like a piranha. If you’re on top of the school anyway, you can afford to be a little nicer.”

“Oh? And what’s in it for me? A _friendship bracelet?_ ” She replies mockingly. "Oh, please."

“You’ll feel good.” Veronica says nonchalauntly. She runs a hand through her hair, looking weary. “Look. I can’t make you stop being a bitch at my beck and call, but I think you’re giving Duke and Mac less credit than they deserve. Even though you treat them like dogshit half the time, they’re your friends. Can’t you stand to stop holding them at arm's’ length?”

“Holier than thou bitch....” Heather grumbles. “You die  _ one _ time and suddenly you’re a paragon of perspective, aren’t you?”

Veronica actually laughs, even if it’s a short one. “That wasn’t a no, though, right?”

Heather rolls her eyes. “I’ll  _ think _ about it. Only because I know you could be a bigger pain in my ass if you wanted.”

“And not because introspection is good for you?” Veronica presses, leaning in almost eagerly, arms behind her back. Looking just a bit too pleased with herself.

“You’re pushing it.” Heather replies flatly. 

“It was worth a shot,” Veronica sighs in a can’t-be-helped sort of way. “I’m going to go check on Mac and Kurt...guess I’ll be seeing you.” Without much else in warning, the ghost vanishes, likely to return to the scene of the crime. 

Heather begins re-applying her makeup, doing her best not to scowl at her reflection. She didn’t  _ need _ to divulge all that....but, then again, she’s been in a strange mood since all this stupid shit started happening around her, and accidents happen, loathe as she is to admit it. 

She’ll never be a saint. She’ll probably never even be a decent person, let alone a good one, at least morally speaking.

But maybe she can give this ‘feeling good’ thing a shot. It’s not like there will be consequences for backing out, anyway. Somehow, the knot in her stomach seems to have unraveled a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you got any enjoyment at all out of the confrontation with Heather, then i did better than i expected, lmfao. writing that was sooooooooooooooooo hardddddd, oh my god. I dont like to scene-shame but that scene is the reason this update took 8 months instead of 1 or 2 lmfao. i couldnt write it for the longest time and when i finally bit the bullet and tried, i rewrote it a bunch of times oops
> 
> giving her a breaking point wasn't too hard, but no matter how many times i rewatched the movie or brushed up on the songs i consider important to her in the musical, I had a really tough time figuring out how she could ever amicably discuss a problem with someone else, lmfao. I also know that the reason for her falling out with veronica in the movie can be easy to miss, and is a very sensitive topic, so I was trying to explain it well without being insensitive or too detailed.
> 
> I don't think there's any real way Heather would air those thoughts to veronica, so I had to try and balance what heather would divulge realistically against what Veronica would have to know to draw those conclusions and start to forgive heather again (and what heather would have to confront herself). In the end I felt like emotional burnout after a more heated discussion would be the only way either left the room without murdering (or re-murdering, in veronica's case) each other outright. I really hope it doesn't seem too contrived, and once again i have to apologize for how long this took. Thank you for reading!
> 
> PS: i want everyone to know how hard it was to resist making a ghost rider joke about veronica on the motorcycle. it was really tough. anyway ghosts on motorcycles? iconic


End file.
